


Death Takes A Holiday: Stockholm Syndrome

by LyraNgalia, rude_not_ginger



Series: Death Takes A Holiday [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bondage, Domination, Exhibitionism, F/M, Gen, Great Hiatus, Office Sex, Oral Sex, Photographs, Public Sex, Race to Top, Shibari, Submission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-04-29 12:23:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5127479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rude_not_ginger/pseuds/rude_not_ginger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stockholm is supposed to be a quick stop, little more than a layover on their way to Moscow. But the promise of misbehaviour will always catch the attention of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler, especially when it allows for petty revenge against Mycroft Holmes for his attempts to meddle in their affair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Importance of Foreplay (Explicit)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see [_Death Takes A Holiday: In the Shadow of the Black Mountain_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/694742) for notes/explanations on the peculiarities of this fic's writing style.

The woman who waits outside the Rosenbad, who looks out over the river Norrström, does not wear the heiress' sheath dress. Instead Irene has switched the conservative business dress for something at once more casual and severe, denim and a mock turtleneck top that hugged every curve, with a stylishly large handbag over one shoulder. An anticipatory smirk plays at her mouth as she glances at the clock. One hour and forty-eight minutes.  
  
She paces along the river, not out of any concern, but to test her balance in the heeled leather boots that encase her legs. They are lower than she prefers, but higher than the flats she'd been limiting herself to. It is not enough to make her feel like herself again, but it is enough, for the moment. The promise of being herself once more, of being Irene Adler again.  
  
Forty-nine.

 

At one hour, fifty-three minutes, Sherlock appears near the woman in the denim and turtleneck. He notices the heels first. One more step closer to being herself. Within the month, he imagines she'll be back in the Louboutins she wore before. She was nothing if not determined in her sense of fashion.  
  
He wore a dark purple shirt and black denim. Casual, but still very much Sherlock Holmes underneath. He could act the part of the heiress's husband, he didn't need to dress that way, as well.  
  
He steps over to her, placing his hand at the small of her back. "Did you enjoy your shopping venture?" he inquires, entirely in character.

 

Her heels are a part of her, as much a part of the dominatrix's armour as her confidence and her blood red lips, the gunshot steps of stiletto heels announcing her arrival. She misses that.  
  
Still, she smiles at his arrival, at the dark purple shirt and black denim, at the veneer of the heiress' murderous husband. "I always do, Maximilian," she replies, the heiress' Australian accent tripping, practiced, over her tongue, her words touched with arch affection. "You've made off well yourself, but I believe we've missed the tour." A pause. "What a pity."

 

He cringes, slightly, at that name. It's something he knows she must know he hates. This Max and his wife would have had many problems, he decides. More than just their apparent need to kill each other.  
  
He presses his mouth to the side of her neck.  
  
"Shame indeed," he replies. "Whatever shall we do?"

 

He cringes, and there is a sharp edge to her smile. Adelaide knows his given name irritates him, but she believes she's right, and will hardly let anything like his feelings get in the way of her definition of propriety. Still, she doesn't pull away immediately at the kiss to her neck. The hint of affection, the little bit of sentiment.  
  
"We hardly have time to wait for the next tour," she murmurs, "I doubt anyone would notice if we take a look around for ourselves."

 

"Mmm," he agrees. "We could have a look around the different political buildings."  
  
He reaches up, tracing his hand across her jawline. That hint of affection despite his intense loathing for the power she has over him, for now.  
  
"I know of several."

 

"Good."  
  
She allows the lingering touch for only a moment, then steps away from him and towards the building, her body language utterly in control, expecting him to follow. She pauses three steps away, and turns to him expectantly, the heiress' irritation with her husband showing through.  
  
"Are you coming?"

 

His head rises, his shoulders stiffen. Annoyance at her control over him showing through. There's only the slightest hint of a smirk on Sherlock's lips to tell the Woman that he's thoroughly enjoying this game.  
  
He follows.  
  
"I like your shoes," he says.

 

Oh, but he is _brilliant_ in his performance, in the tiny tells, the way his shoulders stiffen, the way he holds his head, just slightly bowed despite the rebellious tilt. She could imagine no one else who played as well as he did.  
  
Except her.  
  
"Oh, I expect you'll like them even more dug into your back," she replies, her voice low. That was purely hers, but her body language remains the heiress, stiff-necked and cold.  
  
She waves a negligent hand at the guards standing at the entrance. "The shirt is new, isn't it?" The disapproval in her voice is clear, something Max is used to hearing, that Adelaide is used to making.

 

"Yes," he says, with a tone that says that he knows that she is well aware that it is. "I wasn't certain if we were going to be somewhere that required better dress."  
  
That is to say, he wanted it, and used her money. Something else she must be used to. Her affection must run deep for this idiot, abusing her money and scowling at her.  
  
"No one, I think, will enjoy it as much as you, Woman," he replies, voice equally low.

 

Their murderous husband is sullen, and their irritated wife is indulgent, while they themselves are anticipatory. It is brilliant.  
  
"You should have," she admonished. "You do have our itinerary." She takes his arm, her shoulder bag brushing against his side, with the telltale clink of metal, the faint telltale scent of oiled leather, and the shift of weight of something long and heavy within.  
  
"I believe you'll enjoy it just as much as I do."

 

He smiles again, this time more genuine than just being Max. The Woman has come prepared. So has Sherlock, of course, though his preparation is slightly less conspicuous.  
  
His breath increases, just a little, in excitement.  
  
"And here I imagined two hours wouldn't nearly be enough time," he says, again Max.

 

His breathing quickens; it is obvious to someone who knows where to look. She expects the dilation of her pupils is just as obvious. But those are the signs they wear, not their disguises, and Adelaide's irritation remains firmly on her face, the heiress' peremptory grasp of her husband by the wrist in her hand.  
  
The fact that her touch is warm, that her fingers linger against his pulse, those too are their secrets, obvious in their own way.  
  
"The last time I scheduled more than two hours for an outing, you were less than thrilled," she answers tartly, again Adelaide, long-suffering, irritation warring with affection.  
  
"We'll see how long you last this time." Their secret.

 

"I imagine I can hold out the entirety of this outing," he replies, his own fingers sliding around to her pulse. The casualness of her voice as Adelaide, the way she makes even the simplest of sentences so very _hers_ \---it shouldn't be arousing, should it? Would others find something like that arousing? Does he care?  
  
His eyes fall on the coat closet, and he raises an eyebrow at it, glancing briefly back at the Woman. No, that would be too presumptuous, too out-of-character for Max. It would also show that she had such an incredible hold on him that he couldn't wait to have her.

 

She is waiting for the familiar sensation of his fingers against the telltale point on her wrist, and when it comes, her smile deepens. The Rosenbad is quiet; without the promise of the Prime Minister and his staff going about their business, the politically motivated were scarce, and left only tourists interested in architecture to gawk. A few odd tourists, then, and a pair of ghosts.  
  
Irene tugs him closer as they pass a sweeping staircase, into a dark alcove, where an elevator entryway had been crammed into a spot more suited to a bit of sculpture. "Oh, but the very point of the exercise is to show you _can't_ ," she purred, pressing the button for the elevator with her hip, shifting her stylishly over-sized bag behind her. "Now, tell me what you've deduced about my plans for this outing."

 

Max drops instantly. Deduce is a word that belongs to Sherlock Holmes.  
  
"Your bag contains about seventeen pounds of equipment. Everything you're comfortable with, since you show no sign of awkwardness or discomfort at the bag or its weight. However, all things you don't expect me to recognize or understand, as you've asked a question you don't think I can answer. You're also aware of how long we have with the room of our choice, so you intend to instruct me on several matters."  
  
This is in no way Sherlock Holmes saying he has no idea what she's brought with her. He...may have _some_ idea, but they all don't mesh in his mind with sex.

 

The disguise of Adelaide Rinehart is left somewhere on the ground, discarded between the moment she tugs him into the alcove and his not-actually-a-deduction response. "That is a very long-winded way of saying you have absolutely no idea," she answers, her fingers threading into his hair to pull him down to her. Her kiss is alternately harshly biting and teasing, and she pulls him with her into the elevator when it arrives.  
  
"I may well have to gag you before we even make it into his office."

 

He returns the kiss, equal parts pulling her in while refusing to be pulled in himself. It's not that he can't, it's not that he doesn't want to, but he refuses. Refuses to be pulled in until they're in the room they'll make their own for some time. Then, and maybe only then, he'll let go for a bit. Let her take control.  
  
"You won't," he replies, stepping towards her as they move into the elevator, crowding into her space.  
  
"Because one thing we both happen to like in equal measure is hearing me talk."

 

She can feel her own pulse quicken as he refuses to be pulled in, as he pushes back and crowds into her space. This is what _she_ likes, the push back, the thrill of the chase, the fight, playing the game. The domination is simply a result of the ordinary people who were so often whom she played again.  
  
But he was the thrill, the one who was extraordinary enough to push back.  
  
She laughs, arching into him as she deepens the kiss, and her grip tightens in his hair. "Mmm, I think I might enjoy hearing you scream better," she answers. "That or hearing you use a safe word."

 

"Do people _really_ use those?" he asks, letting his head get pulled back with her grip. "Sounds like absolutely no fun at all."  
  
He lowers his hands to her hips, holding her in place, manipulating her physically the way she manipulates him with her words. There is no master of seduction like Irene Adler, and she knows exactly where to push, where to pull, and how to guide him. And while he will always fight back, he can't help but _absolutely love it._

 

She has him by the hair, and he has her by the hips. Mutually caught, mutually catching. It is absolutely _thrilling_ , and it takes Irene a second to get at the right button on the elevator, to ensure the door is closed again to bring them up.  
  
"I know how much to push so they never do," she purrs, trailing sharp bites and soft sucking kisses along his jaw. It was, after all, part of knowing what they liked. Knowing how far a person could be pushed before their terror caught up with them. Another part of the manipulation. She rocks her hips against his grip, pushing and teasing, her fingernails against his scalp.  
  
She kisses him again, all razor sharp words and biting wit as she pushes back. "But consider your safe word a challenge, Mr. Holmes. Whether or not I can push you hard enough to want to stop."

 

"I don't have a safe word," he replies, letting out a noise at the bites on his neck. "I wouldn't know what to select."  
  
He slides one hand up her back, digging his short nails through the fabric. Affirming that he likes the slight jolts of pain, that he likes _this_ , this way they act together. This arousal, this attraction.  
  
"And I think the two of us have long since given up the notion of stopping, don't you?"  
  
For now. Moscow looms ever closer.

 

She hisses in pleased approval at the way he digs his fingers into her back, at the way he mirrors her, the way they are reflections of each other in their desires. And she knows, even with his protests, exactly what his safe word is. Would be.  
  
Moscow.  
  
Because Moscow is where this ends, this holiday from death that will resurrect them both in different capacities. It is fitting, she thinks.  
  
And the knowledge of it does drive her, does make her push harder, makes her pin him against the wall of the elevator with more vigor as the hand not tangled in his hair grips his hip, pulls him to her as she pushes. "Mmm, mutually assured destruction, so to speak?" she says, her voice low and breathless, as the elevator dings, announcing their arrival at their chosen floor.  
  
"Now that does sound like fun."

 

The ding is supposed to be like a call back to their characters. He should straighten his suit and hair, she should clean up her lipstick and they should go out, move towards the room they plan on using for---well, however long they want, really. But he looks down at her, his back against the lift wall, her hand in his hair and on his hip, his arousal against her---and he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to be Max, not even for the brief walk to the office.  
  
He kisses her again even as he hears the doors open.

 

The doors to the elevator open as his lips are on hers again, and there is nothing of the murderous husband in his kiss, nothing but the faint taste of nicotine and mystery on his tongue. "Be Sherlock Holmes again," she tells him breathlessly, knowing there is no need, that while the risk is minimal, there is still a risk but she cannot properly be made to care at the moment.  
  
She steps away, out of the elevator, her eyes bright with desire, her lipstick smudged, but she pulls him with her, with her fingers in his belt loops. "Be Sherlock Holmes and destroy the last shards of your brother's peace of mind with me."

 

"Yes," he replies, and his voice is a low growl as she pulls him by his trousers out of the lift. They should be in character, they _invented_ these characters for this experience, but she is far too enticing and he is far too invested in the way she feels as she touches him, pulls him along.  
  
He desires her too much, perhaps.  
  
The words "human error" come to mind. Sherlock spends a majority of his time perfecting a general avoidance of all things human, but the Woman makes him want to be -- if not flawed like the average person, at least capable of failure. Fallible. She makes him _want_ to be fallible. She is his human error.  
  
He takes exactly one glance down the hallway, and then disregards it completely for watching the Woman.

 

Her bag and all its equipage bumps against her back, but Irene barely notices. She registers that there is someone heading down the hall, his back towards them: politician, foreign, comfortably in what he believes to be the middle of his political career. Forgettable, useless, not a threat.  
  
Her attention is far more interested in the way his low growl seems to reverberate beneath her skin, in the fact that there were fifteen places his lips could be at the moment and were not. Twenty five yards to the office door, unlocked for ease of the staff to clean up, anything consequential would have been taken with the Prime Minister to Germany.  
  
"Good. But I'm still collaring you," she tells him.

 

He was aware of how quickly the personas were shed, how the simplicity of a tight space---the lift---could bring them here, like this. Dangerously heading to an open office, out of character and exposed. They are positively asking for trouble.  
  
Perhaps that's what's so enticing.  
  
"Did you guess the measurements before you bought it, or was there deduction involved?" he asks.

 

For a brief moment, Irene wonders if they look as they had in that one photograph from Kotor, pressed up against each other, seemingly utterly ordinary, lovers so engrossed and tangled in each other as to be utterly blind to the world.  
  
But it is enough to know that they _aren't_ ordinary, that their desires are tangled up in play and misbehaviour and brilliance and intellect even more than tangled limbs. And his question makes her laugh as she pushes him into the Prime Minister's office, the heavy door swinging shut behind her. "Are you trying to insinuate that I don't know every inch of your body by now, Mr. Holmes?"

 

He moves with her push, then steps forward to press her against the door. He lowers his mouth to press against her neck, tasting skin he knew very well but was far from displeased to revisit.  
  
"Throat size, however, not something one would expect," he says. Her response, however, makes him absolutely certain that whatever she has packed in her bag will fit perfectly.

 

He presses her back against the door and Irene arches against him, disengaging her hand from his body just long enough to lock the door behind her, to shrug the bag and its contents from her shoulder to land on the floor with a solid thud.  
  
Her hand rests at his wrist, then trails slowly up his arm, nails dragging hard against his shirt sleeve until it rests at his shoulder. "You're not someone to expect the usual," she answers. Her grip tightens on his shoulder to drive him to his knees even as her breath hitches with approval at the way his mouth moves along her throat.

 

"No," he replies, raising a hand up to cup the back of her head, hand in her hair. "And neither are you."  
  
He bites gently on her neck, sucking just enough on her throat to pull blood to the surface and leave a small mark. He isn't one for possessiveness when it comes to the Woman. After all, she's taken other lovers simply in the time they've been together, and he doesn't doubt she'll find others as well. It hardly matters to him, her sexuality is her own, as is her body. He simply wants to be part of her mind, in her brilliant thoughts. But the photographs they're sending are going to _Mycroft_. He doesn't share with Mycroft.  
  
Her grip goes to his shoulder, and he feels her lowering him. He goes down to his knees, looking up at her with a wicked smile across his lips.  
  
"Your camera phone or mine?"

 

A spark of anticipation skitters up Irene's spine as he allows himself to be brought to his knees. It is a mixture of their own games and the promise of utterly destroying Mycroft Holmes' peace of mind, and it is _intoxicating_. "Both, of course," she answers. "You don't think I won't keep a souvenir."  
  
She runs a fingernail along his throat, up to trace his jaw, and her own smile is equally wicked, razor sharp and merciless despite her dilated pupils.  
  
"Now, be a good boy and take the collar out of my bag." She savours the words like wine, watching him to take in his reaction to the collar she had purchased, cold silvered steel links woven through with black velvet, at once soft and unyielding, with its accompanying chain lead.

 

He turns the collar over in his hands, as though handling an object of which he has absolutely no knowledge. A leash, of course. She did say, once, that she'd have him on one.  
  
"It's the power play, he says, offering the collar to her, letting the steel links run through his fingers. "Holding a vicious animal under your control."  
  
He considers this. "Which I suppose makes you a bit more of a lion tamer than a dominatrix, Woman."

 

Her fingers brush his as she takes the heavy collar from his hands. Heavier than her clients normally chose, but this was, after all, for something special. She works the clasp open easily, and leans down, her lips brushing his as she set the cold steel against his neck.  
  
"Implying I've tamed you, Mr. Holmes?" she asks, running her fingers along his throat before she snaps the clasp back shut. Her hands linger even as she deftly works the buttons of his shirt open. "Or is that merely what I want your dear brother to think?"

 

"Implying that you might try."  
  
Her hands move easily, sliding button through hole to open his shirt. He takes a hold of the leash she holds, giving it a gentle pull downwards to see if she'd move with it.

 

She does not expect him to tug on the leash. Her clients, after all, knew better. Those who preferred to be collared were submissive as soon as they felt the weight of leather around their throats. But he was not a client, would never be, and so he tugs and she moves with it, her lips pressing firmly against his.  
  
She laughs against his mouth, the sound swallowed up by the kiss, and her hand tightens on the metal leash, tugging it upward towards her.  
  
"Take off your shirt, unless you want to walk out of here with it in shreds," she commands. Tries to. Rather difficult to be as commanding as she'd like with her voice breathless with anticipation.

 

His free hand moves up to his buttons. He wants to not care about the shirt. However, it is his only outfit for Maxamillion, and he can't lose it yet. They do, after all, have to leave this place at some point later. Far later, if Sherlock has his way. He shrugs the shirt off his shoulder, still far from nonchalant with the pink, still-healing wound from the previous month prevalent on his white shoulder. The ache from it is far in the back of his mind, well out of any thoughts.  
  
He'd need to release the leash to pull the shirt off his other arm, and he looks up at her with anticipation of the instruction to do so.

 

For a brief moment, Irene wonders if they'll be able to manage this at all. Not that they would be caught by those still left in the building, but that they may simply become too absorbed in the game to even take photographs. It was tempting.  
  
But that would be ruining the game, ruining the anticipation and the blatant misbehaviour of it, and they could never have that.  
  
Instead, she pulls back far enough to watch his motions, to watch him look up at her, black velvet and silver steel against his throat. Her hand tightens on the leash, her other hand still tracing along the curve of his shoulder, and she purrs, "Give me your camera phone, and off with the rest of it."

 

He leans his head over, to press his lips against her arm as she touches his shoulder  
  
Give her the phone. He realizes just how much of a trust they're putting in each other---or, at least, that he's putting in her by handing over his phone. She has access to Mycroft's number through this, and with that she can send photographs that could actually be compromising, as opposed to just sexual and embarrassing. Except, he thinks as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the phone, he knows she won't. This is a game they're playing together. For all he knows, apart from their holidays, it might be the last one they play.  
  
As instructed, he releases the leash and lets his shirt drop to the ground. He looks up at her, anticipatory and full of desire---but without the submission he imagines might be expected from a position like this.

 

Her lips curve into a pleased smile as his shirt falls to the ground, and Irene leans in to press her lips to his. She barely needs to glance at the mobile to know how to operate its camera, and even less time to take three photographs in rapid succession. Her former profession had allowed her more than enough practice to know exactly how to take photographs quickly and unseen.  
  
She expects at least one of them will be exactly what she wants, a photo of two bodies, faceless, his throat circled by metal and velvet, a vivid red bruise on hers, peeping over the top edge of the mock turtleneck, and her long slim fingers wrapped around his leash.  
  
The thought of what that one photo alone will do spurs Irene to deepen the kiss, even as she murmurs against his mouth, "Take my bag, and back on your feet. We are going to make the British government lose his appetite for the rest of the year."

 

"I want you," he says. "I'm not entirely certain I can wait."

 

Her grip tightens on the leash around his throat, and she pulls it with her as she straightens. She knows the flush on her skin, the rapidness of her breathing, and a host of other signs gives lie to her words, shows him that she wants him in equal measure.  
  
"You'll have to," she tells him. Her eyes are dark and dilated as she meets his, and she moves deliberately, the hand not holding his leash drawing a path down between her breasts, along her stomach, until she unbuttons the fly of her denim jeans. A hint, an invitation, a challenge, and a promise, all in one motion as she takes a step backwards, drawing him with her towards the Prime Minister's wide wooden desk. "I'll consider letting you have what you want _if_ you please me on your knees."  
  
And that too, is a challenge and invitation all at once.

 

"And I imagine I should deduce what it is you want," he says. This is, of course, not even remotely a problem. He thinks of what he could do for her on his knees, and all of these things seem like things he might beg to do under a different set of circumstances.  
  
He follows where she leads him.

 


	2. Bound and Collared (Explicit)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the heart of the Swedish seat of government, Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes play a dangerous game that is equal parts childish vindictiveness and unyielding seduction.

They are different creatures in death; Sherlock Holmes the consulting detective would never allow himself to be collared and led about, and Irene Adler the dominatrix would never demand pleasure from a client. But death allowed them this, allowed them these games and this intimacy and the chance to be tangled in each other, to be bound in velvet and steel and misbehaviour and sentiment and sexuality.  
  
"Whatever you deduce, expect it to be something you can do with your hands behind your back," she tells him. The office is spacious, but it feels like it takes only a step or two before her hips bump up against the Prime Minister's desk, and Irene tugs him close again, the warmth of his bare skin against her clothes. Her breathing is unsteady even as she goads him, "Go on, impress a girl."

 

He presses his mouth against her shoulder. Although he has no bindings holding back his hands, he doesn't use them, not when she tells him not to.  
  
"Difficult with you still dressed," he murmurs.

 

She does not let go of the leash tangled in her fingers even as she arches into the feel of his mouth against her cloth-covered shoulder. It is, after all, the principle that counts.  
  
"So it is," she gasps back. She leans against the desk, and runs her free hand down his side, teasing along the waistband at the boundary of skin and cloth. She hooks her finger into the buttonhole of his trousers, undoes it, and traces a finger along the front, light and teasing. "But I'm playing with you at the moment. Hardly the other way around."  
  
Though, if she were honest, and she never was, perhaps that was not at all true.

 

"I thought that I was supposed to be pleasing _you_ ," he says, taking in a sharp breath at her finger across his erection. He will never understand this game as well as she does, but he does understand the difference between _his_ and _hers_.  
  
He considers if he can remove her undergarments and clothing entirely with his teeth, and decides that yes, he probably could. It would be quite an undertaking, but he thinks it would be worth it.  
  
He lowers himself, pressing his lips to her knee this time.

 

The fierce pleasure that had shot through her at his sharp gasp becomes liquid desire at the touch of his lips against her knee, right at the edge of where her leather boots end to reveal denim.  
  
"You should know by now that watching you struggle always pleases me," she tells him, her nails running along his jaw, ready to thread into his hair and hold him there if (when) necessary.  
  
She doesn't tell him there are no knickers, no tangles of silk and lace to frustrate him beneath the jeans she wears. The part of her that is still intent on teasing him, on observing his reactions, wants to savour his reaction to the discovery.  
  
"I suggest the zipper first."  
  
The rest of her has made up her mind that if he manages the zipper she will shed the jeans herself.

 

He presses his mouth up, tasting fabric and warmth as he moves up her jeans. No real pleasure can be derived from the action, he thinks, but it's the _anticipation_ that is what he wants to unveil.  
  
"Is that what you suggest?" he says, moving up to her hip. He moves to the edge of her jeans, pressing a kiss to her stomach.

 

She is tense beneath his lips as he moves slowly upward, tension taut with the effort of keeping still, of keeping precise amounts of space between them, of pretending to be unmoved, untouched. She knows precisely what he is doing, the anticipation that is slowly unraveling, building, like a physical ache.  
  
She gasps, the sound almost a laugh, at the touch of his mouth against the sliver of skin that shows between her top and the waistband. The warmth of his mouth against her skin is positively electric, and her fingers tighten against the coils of the leash, her hips arching, her stance widening to stay steady on her feet.  
  
"Would you rather it be what I commanded?"

 

"But then I'd want to fight against it," he purrs against her, moving his mouth to the zip. In theory, it's not that difficult. Movement of button through eyelet, and then teeth to pull down zip. He imagines that at some point she might get frustrated with him and take over, so he has to move quickly enough to circumvent that possibility.  
  
Everything is a new puzzle and a new plan with her. Even this. It's perfect.  
  
"But then, I've never been very good at understanding domination." He takes a hold of the edge of her jeans with his teeth and gives it a gentle pull. Surprisingly enough, the button slides through easily.

 

She nearly arches into him with a breathless moan when his mouth hovers over the zipper, and the only reason she _doesn't_ is she manages to remember the camera phone, and moves her hand out of his hair to take another photograph.  
  
The threat of taking photos on her own camera phone is long gone. The photograph would pale in comparison to the memory, and to keep such a physical memento would be sentimental, utterly unlike them.  
  
Still, while she might have been able to distract herself from an utterly inappropriate moan, she does lean back against the desk, her grip tight on the leash. "Yes you do," she gasps, her fingers tightening back in his hair after she set the mobile back down. "You just see it in being right. Dominating their intellects rather than their minds and their bodies."

 

Each click of the mobile phone's camera is surprisingly arousing, the knowledge of the power those pictures have. Him, giving her the power of them, and them, having the power to appall Mycroft with them. Mycroft probably wouldn't want to be part of this, but what they plot against him is part of their power play.  
  
He catches his teeth against the zip and slowly pulls down. He loosens it a few teeth before letting to go speak.  
  
"Is that what I _like_ , Woman?"

 

The barest edge of a growl creeps into her voice when he stops tugging on the zipper, "It's obvious, or have you still not figured out where to look?"  
  
Her fingers tighten in his hair, tugging him back down. It should be a commanding gesture, but Irene cannot help but think that there is something like urging in the motion.

 

He takes a hold of the zip again, tugging it down even further. He's not entirely certain how he's going to pull the rest of her jeans down, but he figures he'll get there when the time comes. He pulls the zip down a little more than halfway before releasing it again. No knickers. He grins, pressing his lips to the skin he's revealed.  
  
"I always leave you to your deductions about me," he murmurs, going back to the zip.

 

She can feel him grinning when he presses his mouth against bare skin, and Irene resists the urge to arch into the touch, resists the urge to shift and find temporary friction. It would, after all, be losing to resort to such desperate measures.  
  
Instead, she tugs at the leash, urging him on with the collar around his neck, and tries to regain herself even as she is breathless. "And to tell you would be playing fair," she reminds him.

 

"I would never expect that of you," he replies. Finished with the zip, he considers his next act. Should he tug on the upper part of her jeans? Should he try elsewhere until she becomes frustrated enough to remove them on her own? So many possibilities.  
  
He looks up to her.  
  
"I await instructions," he says, though from the smile on his face, it's entirely possible his plan is to ignore her instructions entirely.

 

She considers him critically, her eyes sweeping over the sight of him on his knees, the smile on his lips that all but promised misbehaviour. Her own smile grows to match his, and Irene sets her feet fully back on the ground, leaning in close to brush a cool, chaste kiss to his cheek.  
  
"Hold still, and close your eyes," she commands, reaching for the bag she'd brought with them. "Oh, and keep your hands precisely where they are."

 

Being still is no problem, nor is closing his eyes. Not really. He has slept next to her, drugged and high and completely sober, and she hasn't broken his trust. He doesn't honestly believe that will happen now.  
  
He shuts his eyes as her lips brush his cheek. He hears her reaching for the bag, and attempts to determine what she is removing as he hears her move it.

 

Handcuffs would have been too mundane after London, too pedestrian, too _boring_. Instead, Irene pulls out a long strip of black silk with barely a whisper and drapes it over his bared chest before drawing it along his wrists.  
  
Her fingers are quick, skilled, and it takes very little time for her to weave an intricate pattern binding his arms together behind his back from wrists to elbow.  
  
She slides a finger down to his wrist, beneath the silk so that she can touch the pulse point just beneath his skin. "Pulse, elevated," she purrs from behind him.

 

"Anticipatory," he agrees. "Parisian silk, bought new at a boutique near a bread shop."  
  
It's all he can tell. He tries to determine color by the weight of the silk, but considering all of his nerves are on fire, it's difficult to even tell the length. He lets out a slight gasp as she pulls back his arms to tie him, a very slight strain on his shoulder.  
  
Worth it for the intricacy of the process.  
  
"And yours?" he asks, of her pulse.

 

She smiles, takes a single audible step back, one click of moderate heels against the wood floor, to examine her handiwork. Liquid desire pools warm and heady in the pit of her stomach, and Irene has the presence of mind to take another photograph, one of her handiwork, no more, before stepping back in front of him.  
  
She reaches into the bag again, pulls out one last item, a heavy, leather flogger, each braided leather strap of it supple and knotted to bite, to sting, and sets it on the desk. She has, at the moment, absolutely no plans to use it. But it is there, all the same. She hooks a finger into the belt loop of her unzipped jeans and tugs them low over her hips, feeling her own arousal warm and wet against herself.  
  
"Open your eyes and make a deduction."

 

"The power play," he replies. He can smell her arousal before he opens his eyes, and while his arms are bound, there is still so much he could do. So much he wants to do. His eyes fall on the flogger, and he thinks of the power that could be wielded with it. Not for actual pain, not for torture, but in order to reprimand. To _scold_.  
  
He looks up, playing compliant and submissive as she lowers her jeans.  
  
"May I?"

 

He plays the submissive brilliantly, complacent in the set of his knees, in the way his attention is drawn to the flogger, to the trappings of power, but there is a look in his eyes, the set of his jaw, that makes it abundantly clear that this is still _their_ game, that she has not yet won despite the fact that he was bound and on his knees.  
  
She draws a deep, shuddering breath at the question, and it takes another three seconds before she trusts her voice enough to answer. She tugs the leash, drawing him closer. A nod. Her voice is husky, throaty, breathless with anticipation. "Don't disappoint me, Mr. Holmes."  
  
And still challenging.

 

He lets out a low, quiet moan at the way her voice sounds, at the anticipation there, the way his reactions have made her so aroused. He is far from the master of seduction, but he feels as though he's learned what is important: what the Woman likes.  
  
He moves forward without hesitation, pressing his mouth just above her mound, slowly lowering his kisses. It is not the first time he has done this with her and (if he has his way) it won't be the last, either. He knows her taste, he's grown to learn what she likes. How to touch her, how to taste her.

 

A low moan begins building low in her throat as soon as his mouth touches bare skin, as his tongue traces against nerves starved for sensation, but Irene refuses to let it escape, not just yet. Her arousal is obvious, painfully, achingly so, but to react so strongly to him already would be far too flattering to his ego.  
  
Still, it does not stop her pulse from racing, no doubt discernible at the pulse point of her femoral artery, or her breathing from wavering. Her fingers curl into his hair, tightening her grip as his tongue followed paths he had discovered before, as little variations along those paths made her gasp. She feels distinctly like a violin string, every muscle tension taut in anticipation, in wanting desire.  
  
Still, she cannot hold still, cannot simply _be_ pleasured no matter how skilled his mouth, how anticipation has primed her body. She stretches, arching towards his mouth as she runs her booted toe up his thigh, following the inside seam of his trousers.

 

He moans in his throat again from the promised contact of her foot against his leg, and from the reactions she is so expertly hiding. He hums against her clitoris, allowing his tongue to take the vibrations as he traces circles around it, across it.  
  
He could try to play coy, to _tease_ , but he was instructed not to disappoint. He has no intention of going against that instruction.

 

She is too tightly wound, too full of anticipation, to last, and the swirl of his tongue, the humming vibration of his mouth against her clitoris is more than enough to send her tumbling over the precipice. Her orgasm washes over Irene like a tidal wave, clenching tight as the moan she has tried to suppress claws its way out of her throat. Her body shakes, shudders, like a plucked violin string, and her nails bite into his scalp as her fingers twist in his hair, the one point of solidity in the room that mattered as she cries out her pleasure between Sherlock Holmes' mouth and the desk of the Prime Minister of Sweden.  
  
If she were thinking clearly, she'd realize it was a wonderful opportunity for another photograph, but thinking clearly was the last thing on her mind.

 

If Sherlock's mind were on anything but the way she feels against him, orgasming, the feel of her nails against his scalp, or the feel of his own bound arms straining slightly against the silk binds, he might've thought to remind her. Or not, actually. Her, like this? It's not something he wants to share with Mycroft.  
  
She has on too many clothes, and he has no way to alleviate this problem. Not without moving his mouth away from her, which is something he has no intention of doing at this exact moment.

 

His mouth remains precisely where it is, lips and tongue refusing to allow her to catch a breath, keeping the pleasure from ebbing completely. Collecting her thoughts is difficult, as they scatter with every breath she takes, every move that sends another jolt of pleasure up her spine. Still, she manages to run her foot higher along his leg, the toe of her boot against his straining erection.  
  
"An improvement," she manages to gasp, her voice smoky with pleasure, her eyes hooded and dark as she looked down at him. The sight of him bound and on his knees before her nearly sends Irene headlong into another orgasm. "You've been very observant."

 

He wants to reply, of course he does, but that would mean giving her nerves a reprieve, stopping another orgasm before it begins. He hums again, as though in response, but continues to swirl his tongue across her clitoris.  
  
Her foot, booted and heeled, traces against his erection, and the danger is as enticing as the friction through his trousers. He wants to tell her this, of course, but that requires speaking, again. In a way, she has successfully silenced him for one of the first times in his life. Very clever of her, really.

 

Every touch is magnified, every hesitation obvious, with his lips and tongue working against her clitoris. She can feel another orgasm build as he continues working, as he tries to drive her relentlessly towards the edge again. Her foot traces up his erection, stroking, teasing.  
  
It is a race now, for her to tempt him into breaking his concentration before he can drive her over the edge again. She laughs, liquid and wanting, at the prospect, pulls upward at the leash around his neck, tempting him to rise, to crush his lips to hers.

 

No, he doesn't want to stop. She's shuddering, and he knows only another few moments and she'll orgasm again. But she has the advantage, as she always does, with his arms bound and her hand on the leash. She pulls up, and he moves with the pull, but not before giving one more defiant lick. For good measure.  
  
"Trying to break my concentration?" he says. "Can't you see I'm working?"  
  
It's a phrase he's said many times before in his life, but never with the smile on his face, now. The gentle, teasing smile, something that only she has been able to pull out of him.  
  
He presses his mouth to hers instantly, kissing her deeply, passionately.

 

She is holding on to her composure by her fingernails, tension taut and practically quivering with the desire to give in. But her resolve lasts just long enough, and his mouth is on hers again before she has to demonstrate just how far he's gotten under her skin. Again.  
  
She can taste herself on his tongue, and the imagined bitter bite of cigarettes that she's associated with Sherlock Holmes, with their holiday from death. The intensity with which he kisses her almost takes her breath away, but she would not be Irene Adler if she did not rise to his challenge, if she did not meet him measure for measure.  
  
Still, she is breathless as she answers against his mouth, her hand slipping out of his hair to finish undoing his trousers, the leash remaining in her other hand. "I'm more interested in having you see _me_ work at the moment," she answers. The words were the dominatrix's, but there is a reckless abandon, a pleasure in her voice that no one else could provoke.

 

He does not want to just give in, but there's that undercurrent, the Woman beneath the dominatrix, and she's not someone he can easily deny. Say 'no' to? Of course, but not deny. Her hands are against his trousers, undoing them, moving them out of the way. He takes in a breath of air through his teeth, fighting to regain his own composure.  
  
"You have me tied and at your mercy," he replies, brushing his lips against hers again.  
  
"I'd tell you to do your worst, but you have a very active imagination."

 

She shivers with pleasure and anticipation at his words, and nips at his bottom lip, nearly hard enough to draw blood as she frees his erection from the confines of his trousers. She runs a nail lightly along the throbbing length, and shifts her hips to brush against him, a light teasing touch for all its fleeting warm heat.  
  
"I told you once what I'd do, didn't?" she purred. "I would have you right here on this desk..."

 

"And I remember something about begging---or something else I hadn't done prior to your acquaintance," he says with a devilish grin.  
  
He lets out a low groan at her hips against his, and he moves forward to kiss the side of her throat. He can't touch her, but he can find other ways to get under her skin.

 

She is tempted to let him linger, let him trail kisses along the side of her neck, down the curve of her shoulder in the way that he's learned so well, but that would hardly be _fun_ , though it would be immensely pleasurable.  
  
A count of five. She allows herself to savour the feel of his mouth against her cloth-covered throat for five seconds before she pulls away, the hand that had been teasing his arousal suddenly at his hip, pivoting on her heels such that she reverses their positions, pins the back of his legs against the unforgiving edge of the desk.  
  
"Until you begged for mercy twice," she reminds him, bringing the length of the leash up to her teeth, holding it there while she reaches for the flogger, to trail the supple leather braids of it along his bound arms.  
  
She isn't certain she can wait for him to beg twice, but she is certainly going to try.

 

"Ah, yes, I do remember this," he says, with the exaggerated edge of a man who just realized something long forgotten. He smiles as the cool braids of the flogger trace up his skin.  
  
"Now, I know what those were originally designed for," he says, not breaking his gaze from hers. "But what is _your_ intention."

 

She laughs, low and intimate and wanting, and eases his trousers over his hips. Whether he steps out of them or lets them puddle around his ankles is inconsequential to her, simply that they are out of her way. Once they are, she takes the leash out from between her teeth and wraps it around her knuckles again, the flogger in her opposite hand, trailing down his chest.  
  
"If I told you, that would be playing fair," she answers, leaning in close so that her lips brush the shell of his ear. The movement is precise, so that she only makes direct contact with his ear, any other point between them simply the brush of radiant heat against skin. "Now up on the desk, Mr. Holmes. I won't ask a second time."

 

He has no intention of doing as intended, but his body reacts immediately to the touch of her lips against his ear and the denial of her body everywhere else. He moves back, raising up on his toes to get his arse firmly on the cold mahogany table.  
  
"I feel a bit like a dog being told to sit," he says. He glances down at the leash. "I suppose under the circumstances...."

 

"Mmm, if you were a dog being told to sit, I'd tie the leash to the desk and leave you here," she answers. The flogger continues its path down his abdomen, hips, its supple braids a light touch against his arousal, the only touch she offers as she nudges his knees apart enough to step between them.  
  
"But the question is, if I give you back use of your hands, whether you'll behave with them?"

 

His erection twitches with the touch. She's toying with him, now, and he finds that he doesn't mind at all. Not even slightly.  
  
"Absolutely not," he replies. "And I've never been one to ask permission, anyway."  
  
He moves one arm from behind his back to circle around her waist and pull her to him.  
  
The thing about the shibari method of tying one's hands behind their back, be it with a rope or a piece of silk, is that there is a minute amount of give at the wrist. That, in combination with the type of material and the haste with which the Woman tied him, made slipping his left arm free easy. Well, relatively easy. There was a moment while she traced the flogger up his arms that he absolutely forgot he was trying to undo the knots at all.

 

She gasps in surprise when he pulls her to him, though the surprise is immediately followed by a gleam in her eyes, a predatory smile on her lips as her eyes lock on his. She shifts, moves so that the denim still clinging to her hips rubs against his skin with deliberate teasing friction. She lets go of the flogger, though not the leash, and raises her leg enough to bump his knee with her own, still clad in denim and knee-high leather boots.  
  
"Then unzip my boots, Mr. Holmes, and let's see what you think you can do."

 

His other hand still holds the scarf, which he brings up, looping one end around the back of her neck. Hardly as effective as the leash, of course, but he always follows behind to gain somewhat equal footing with her. His other hand releases her waist and moves up to unzip her boot.  
  
"I'm more than slightly interested in seeing what _you_ think I can do."

 

The silk is warm against the back of her neck, and Irene hums with approval as his hand slides down the zipper. Her own grip tightens on the leash and she pulls it to her, pressing her mouth to his jaw.  
  
"I _know_ you'll try to distract me," she answers, setting the flogger aside to ease the first boot off her foot. Without it on, she stands a few inches shorter, but her presence remains the same as she offers him the other to undo. Her fingers trail up his bare arm, nails tracing their path. "You won't be terribly successful, mind."

 

As she speaks, he tightens his hold on the silk, just slightly. He crosses his arm over to her other leg, deftly unzipping that boot as well.  
  
"I think you underestimate my resolve," he says.  
  
Her fingernails, the touch of her mouth to his jaw, the taste of her on his mouth, it's all positively overwhelming. But he won't be deterred. This is, after all, more of a game than anything else. And he, of course, would like to win. He's never been the sort to play to lose (even though he knows he would enjoy that immensely).

 

The second boot is unceremoniously kicked away behind her, and Irene takes a single step back, the silk around her throat and the leash around his stretching between them. Her eyes remain on his, her gaze unbreaking, as she considers him, perched on the Swedish Prime Minister's desk. The smirk still firmly on her lips, Irene reaches down with her free hand and peels the denim jeans off her legs, leaving her utterly bare below the waist, her turtleneck top still firmly on her shoulders.  
  
"I underestimated your resolve once," she corrects quietly as she steps back into his personal space, into the radiant heat that promised touch and pain and the game they play with each other. Her eyes are dark and dilated, but determined nonetheless as her fingers ring his erection with a calculated, almost painfully light pressure, "I have absolutely no intention of doing that again, Mr. Holmes."

 

"Nor I with you."  
  
His eyes close on their own accord, focusing on the sensation of her fingertips around him. Self-control is something he has cultivated and appreciated, and she always manages to tear that away from him. He would be utterly at her mercy, except he cheated---just a little---by removing his own binds.  
  
Even continuing to hold onto the cloth, he has a free hand.  
  
He opens his eyes again, giving a gentle tug on her makeshift leash. His own hand doesn't act quite so bold as hers, he slides to her hip, and then up and under her shirt, skimming over her rib cage.

 

His fingers glide over her rib cage, ghosting over the scar from Karachi, and her breath hitches as she allows the light tug on the silk at her neck to bring her closer to him. Her fingers continue stroking him even as she leans in close, as the hand holding the leash rests on his uninjured shoulder to steady herself as she moves to join him on the desk.  
  
"Good," she murmurs, her own eyes fluttering shut momentarily at the touch of his hand against her skin. "I'd hate to think you let me win."

 

"And insult your capabilities, Woman?" he all but purrs, leaning down to press a kiss to her neck as she moves up to join him. "I think not."  
  
He traces his hand up, feeling every crease, every raised bit of skin. He wonders if he could catalog the knife wound and perpetrator of the crime simply by touch. He decides that no, he probably couldn't, but he wouldn't admit that aloud. He traces over to her abdomen, and then up to her left breast, to trace his fingertip over the nipple.  
  
He could almost swear her breast feels slightly larger than the last time they made love. It must be the brassiere and their position.

 

She arches into the touch of his lips against her neck, the motion bringing the tip of his erection tantalizingly close to her entrance, and she gasps at the touch of his finger over her hardening nipple. The touch is unexpectedly effective, sending a shiver down her spine, and she nearly loses control, nearly forgets her promise to tease and tempt.  
  
The thought occurs to her that he must be improving; not that there is any change in her nerves' sensitivity.  
  
"And what do you think my capabilities are at this moment?" she questions, still maintaining those precious few millimeters between their bodies. She strokes him from root to tip, drawing out the gesture to tease at her clitoris at the end, tossing her head back with a shiver of anticipatory pleasure.

 

The primary difference between the grip of her long fingers and her body itself is that she is unbelievably _warm_. Teasing herself there, rubbing against the warmth of her clitoris while still denying him is---well, it's very _effective_ , actually. Lifting up his hips will admit his desire, as will any sort of moan or groan.  
  
"I think you're drawing out what I like," he says. "Which is the game."  
  
Teasing, push and pull, denial and eventual admission. It's a game they've played many times and, with the new promise of holidays for the future, would continue to play again and again.  
  
"I won't beg," he says, but he's very unhappy to hear the lack of confidence in his voice.

 

"You don't have to beg," she answers, a slow languorous smile curving her mouth, her eyes hooded as she watches him from beneath lowered lashes. She strokes him again, this time lighter, her touches to her own body lingering longer, her hips shifting but no closer to him.  
  
"I am perfectly _satisfied_ watching you suffer beneath me."

 

"Are you, now?" he demands. She shifts her body, rubbing against him but not giving him any satisfaction. His grip on her leash tightens ever so slightly with one of her movements, as it rubs a particularly sensitive place on his erection.  
  
"Woman," he breathes.  
  
No, he will not. He is Sherlock Holmes, he is above all of this. He plays with her body through her brassiere, and she plays with him directly, rubbing him skin to skin. It's very obvious which of the two of them is more daring.  
  
" _Please_ ," he says, at last.

 

The tiniest moan escapes her as he tugs on her leash, and Irene repeats the motion that caused him to tug at the leash in the first place. There is no one else in the world who could make her want this, she thinks, who could make her gasp at the feel of silk tight against her throat.  
  
She watches him, and slowly inserts a finger into herself, teasing them both. Her lips part, and she bites her bottom lip to keep herself in control. " _Twice_ , Mr. Holmes," she reminds him, though her reminder sounds as much like a plea to him as his to her.

 

"No," he murmurs, eternally defiant.  
  
He lowers his hand from her breast down to catch her wrist. He pulls her hand up, away from herself. He moves her fingertip to his mouth, mimicking the gentle suction he'd just placed on her clitoris moments ago.  
  
"Not until you do."


	3. Boudouir Photography (Explicit)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dominance and submission play equal parts in Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler's game. But will they ever admit just how much sentiment plays?

Irene's relief at his toying with her breast becomes a soft growl of approving frustration as Sherlock pulls her hand away, the growl becoming more irritation when his mouth begins sucking at her fingertip, recalling the sensation of the way he'd applied said mouth moments earlier.  
  
She pulls at his leash and brings her face close to his, her lips against his. "Please," she breathes.

 

There is something even more deviant, sexual, and undeniably attractive in the Woman's single words than anything within her bag could be. He lets out a moan to rival that he gave while she touched him.  
  
" _Please_ ," he murmurs again. Begging twice.

 

At the single word, she shudders, not in orgasm but in relief, in the pleasure of finally having what she wants. It is, perhaps, too revealing of her secrets, a too obvious acknowledgment of how her claim that she was perfectly satisfied watching him writhe in torment was at least in part a lie.  
  
But that barely matters with his second plea warm against her skin, and she eases herself onto him with painfully precise motions, one centimeter at a time, surrounding the throbbing heat of his arousal.   
  
She holds still for a moment, savouring the sensation of desire denied and fulfilled. "That's better," she sighs.  
  
Hard to say whether she meant his please or their current position.

 

"I agree."  
  
He lifts his hips up, pushing just that much further into her. It is not the actual act of sex that he'll miss during their times apart, but _this_ , this game, this---he won't call it a _connection_ , that's the sort of thing saved for John and his girlfriends. No, this is different from what John cultivates and, in Sherlock's opinion, significantly better.  
  
"Don't forget your flogger," he adds, before moving in to kiss her deeply.

 

Her laugh is swallowed up by his kiss, by the way the air feels as if it has been sucked out of her lungs, and the only thing she can think to do is to respond in kind, to delve deep and taste him on her tongue as she moves with him, rocking in a now-familiar rhythm.  
  
Her hand grasps blindly for the flogger until her fingers close over the smooth leather covered handle. She is in no position to use it properly, no position to give the full armed swing he no doubt expects. Instead, she flicks her wrist sharply, letting the myriad leather braids bite quick and fast against his side, his back, as she rides him.

 

He expects a harder sting, but her position prevents that, he doesn't doubt. All the same, the crack of the flogger is surprisingly enticing against his skin as they move together, her hips, his hips, the cold of the desk. She is wet and hot around him, and he doesn't imagine that there is another woman in the entire world who would feel quite the same as the Woman does.  
  
He knows it's sentiment producing this thought. He doesn't care.  
  
His hand that had been holding her wrist releases her, moving down to massage her clitoris as they move together.

 

The loss of his grip on her wrist disappoints her for a fleeting moment before his fingers against her clitoris makes her gasp again. Still, there was something enticing in his grip against her wrist, a spark that had begun to smolder back in the opera house in Kotor, in London.   
  
She gasps, knowing she is close to another orgasm, and her hips move quicker, urging him along with her. She refuses to fall over the edge without him, would have him fall before her, if at all possible. The leash connected to the steel and velvet collar around his throat is slack, its lead tangled in her fingers even as those same fingers clutch at his shoulder and drag red furrows along his back.  
  
Her grip on him is as tight as that on her self control as she attempts to bring him with her, to push him to orgasm at the very least milliseconds before she falls to it herself.

 

In theory, the nails across his back should not be pleasurable. They should hurt. They should hurt, and he should delay orgasm because of them. He should most certainly _not_ find himself suddenly propelled towards it.  
  
He cries out as his orgasm hits him without warning, completely heedless of his own desire to stay ahead of the Woman, to keep her orgasming long before he came as well.

 

The fierce spark of triumph as he cries out against her sends Irene headlong into her own long-denied orgasm, and she presses her mouth to his in a desperate kiss, whether to draw his cry into herself or to muffle her own, she is uncertain and does not particularly care.  
  
Her body clenches and shudders in climax, her nails biting even deeper into his back, holding onto the one solid thing within her ability to process. Pleasure triggers the rush of endorphins, and her awareness comes back slowly as every nerve within her body seems to sing with relief. She becomes aware again of the feel of the wooden desk beneath her knees, the bandage (now mostly superficial) covering her souvenir from San Salvador, the warmth of him faintly damp with sweat (or was that her? hardly mattered) beneath her.  
  
She lets go of the flogger, lets it fall to the ground, and gropes blindly for a moment. "Your camera phone," she murmurs against his lips, her eyes still closed, letting the momentary bliss linger.

 

Sherlock glances down at the floor, where his trousers are, next to his camera phone. He makes a small, irritated face, and decides not to move.  
  
The computer on the desk, however, is within reach.  
  
"The prime minister has a camera on his computer," Sherlock says. "Considering the depth of his seat, I would say it is probably not the first time a photograph of this nature would be taken by it."

 

Her eyes flutter open, and she moves her head just far enough to see the prime minister's computer. Her grip eases on his back, and she draws her hand back. She rests her forehead against his, and looks down at the dark length of the leash wrapped around her knuckles, at the silken strap that draped around her neck, its ends trailing between her breasts where her shirt had been pushed up and aside.  
  
"Hardly seems worth the effort to move," she says.

 

"Mmmm," he agrees. He leans forward, pressing his lips to the side of her neck. Nothing sexual, just---affectionate. Intimate. Something he's feeling less afraid to show around her, but might not want photographed for his brother.  
  
"Should I ask where you learned shibari?" he asks.

 

She hums, pleased, at the touch of his lips against the side of her neck, and she reaches up to run her fingers along his throat, above the collar.   
  
"Only if you tell me how you were able to recognize shibari without looking," she answers, her fingers lingering at the clasp, as if she is trying to decide whether or not to remove it.

 

"Oh, you learn a variety of different knots and knotting techniques for different cases," Sherlock says, easily. Too easily to be the truth, mind.

 

"That doesn't answer the question of how you were able to recognize this particular technique. And I think you know that, Mr. Holmes," she retorts. She untangles the leash from around her knuckles, lets the lead fall onto the desk.   
  
She still does not undo the clasp on his collar, not yet, her recently freed hand now running along his shoulder, along the healing bullet wound and up his back, following the lines of red she'd raked across his skin with soft fingertips.

 

"I once learned the entire knotting techniques of a torture ring in Mozambique," he replies, turning his head slightly to watch her long nails trace along his shoulder.  
  
The truth was slightly more embarrassing than that, and involved John Watson having to come in and cut him out of a few ill-done knotting sessions before.

 

"Still avoiding the answer. Must be an embarrassing one."  
  
Her words, however, are tempered with affection. Affection that comes easier now. She tells herself that it is simply because the end of their holiday is near, that she allows herself to indulge, knowing the opportunity will soon be gone.  
  
Her fingers tug on the collar's clasp. "You haven't tried to remove this either. Should I deduce that you want to keep it on?"

 

"I could say the same for this," he replies, twisting the silk scarf around his fingertip. His eyes drift downwards to her hand, where the ring, that same ring they've had since the beginning, still rests on her hand. She hadn't removed that, either. He doesn't really understand why that pleases him so much.  
  
"Of course, yours is significantly less conspicuous."

 

She laughs softly at that, and in the same motion unhooks the collar around his neck, setting it aside. She should move, they both should, should gather up their belongings, leave the Rosenbad behind. "It'd cover up any marks you've left quite nicely," she says tartly, her eyes sparkling.   
  
She runs her thumb against the skin of his neck now exposed by loosened collar as she adds, "But you'd have to try harder if you want to repeat that particular feat."

 

"Will I get the opportunity again?" he asks. He is surprised at how oddly nostalgic his voice sounds. Almost wistful, as though he will miss this. He will, he supposes. After all, there most likely won't be another opportunity for coupling through the rest of this holiday, and they have yet to plan another.  
  
Sentiment, sentiment.

 

The realization comes to Irene that she _wants_ him to have another opportunity to try. That she will miss this, even though she is glad their holiday will end before they are too thoroughly entangled in each other to leave.  
  
Sentimental. Idiotic.   
  
She brushes her lips against his cheek in a quick, affectionate kiss. The last bout of sentiment she'll allow herself, at least for the moment. "Implying you won't orchestrate an opportunity if you set your mind to it, Mr. Holmes?" she challenges, rising on her knees to untangle herself from him.

 

"Implying that you wouldn't do the same," he replies, easily. She moves to untangle herself, and he refuses to pull her back towards him, to revel in their entwined status.  
  
He glances to the floor again.  
  
"We didn't take nearly enough photographs."

 

She moves and sits back on the desk, letting her injured leg stretch out for a moment before getting to her feet. "Enough to upset his digestion for a month, at least. More if his imagination is even remotely creative," she says, slipping off the table to pick up her jeans. She shakes them out, then gives him a look, a single arched eyebrow and a smirk, over her shoulder.   
  
"Or was that another veiled suggestion of a repeat engagement?"

 

"I think it might be worth approaching."  
  
He slides off the desk, reaching for his trousers and pulling out the phone from the tangle. He turns it to the desk, which is seemingly empty apart from the minister's personal belongings, though he knows Mycroft will see what's happened there simply from the details. He snaps a photograph.  
  
"We do, after all, have a 72 hour delay in St. Petersburg before our final flight."

 

She freezes unexpectedly for a moment, then forces herself to shake the bout of melancholy away. Final flight. Of course. Moscow was the end of it, the end of their holiday, the end of _this particular_ getaway from death.

She reaches for her bag, pulls out a pair of knickers and slips them on first, dressing briskly. "Mmm, that might be enough time," she teases. " _After_ you've helped me with a little matter, that is."

 

A little matter. Something he hadn't expected. The Woman is one of the few people who can ever surprise him, and she regularly does. He looks in her direction, then down to the bag. Very little of what she purchased was produced, let alone used. What's in there must be for someone else.  
  
"Recreational scolding?" he asks. He turns, snapping another photograph, this one of her with only her knickers on.

 

"Was the knife we stole in Montenegro merely a theft?"

She nods at the camera before pulling the band out of her hair, letting it fall loose over her shoulder rather than in its low tail. "You'd have to do better than _that_ if the photo is to upset his digestion." She smirks, and steps back into her jeans. "Unless it was a personal memento."

 

"Why would I share a photograph of you with him?" he asks, tucking the camera phone back into his pocket. He tugs on his trousers and pulls a pack of cigarettes from the other pocket.  
  
Smoking post-coitus was always a television trope Sherlock never understood until the Woman. Now, there's something wonderfully filthy in smoking after something so intimate.  
  
"Obviously scolding for information, then. Growing your new web."

 

"If it's so obvious, you hardly need me to confirm it."

Still, she is smiling, pleased, as she zips up, straightens her shirt, and ties the silk around her throat in a chic knot. Despite the fact that she does not change clothes, between the now-loose hair and the scarf and her expression, there is very little of the Australian heiress in her. She leans over and reaches for the package of cigarettes in his hand. "Outside first. Cigarette smoke would be too obvious."

 

"True," he says, tucking it behind his ear. "I wonder if Mycroft will take charge of cleaning the room before his friend returns."

He mentally notes to send Mycroft the pictures one day before the man's return, just to give his brother a minor heart attack over it all.

He dresses quickly, leaving the top button loose on the shirt. His hair no longer at a side part, he is far more himself than Maxamillion. The disguise would have been easier to maintain alone. So would the Woman's.

 

The implements she'd brought are tucked back into her bag, and Irene takes a moment to zip on her boots again. "If he does, we should send him the photos the day before the good PM is set to return," she answers.   
  
She casts a quick eye around the room for any too-obvious evidence left behind, and slips a cigarette out of the package for herself, letting it twirl between her fingers. They look like lovers, she thinks. Giddy idiots in the flush of their romance, post-coital cigarettes in hand, obviously uncaring. It is as good a disguise as any.  
  
She gestures to the door and shoulders her bag. "Ready?"

 

"Yes," he agrees, taking the pack back and tucking it away in his pocket.  
  
Why, he wonders, do others take photographs, if not for blackmail or (in their case) to annoy another. Do they take them to remember the sexual chemistry, the romance? Sherlock has found that it is impossible to forget moments with the Woman, even if he wants to, even if he concentrates. Photographs are utterly unnecessary.  
  
He reaches the door and turns back to her, extending his hand for hers. His fingers will not go to her hand, of course, but will rest against her pulse.

 

She smiles as he reaches for her hand, but rather than letting him control where it rests (she has no doubt he would rest his fingertips against her pulse point if given the opportunity), she tangles her fingers with his, the barest twitch of her mouth and her eyes meeting his conveying the fact that she knows exactly what he had planned to do, and how he will now have to work for it.  
  
There is, after all, no reason for her to hide her pulse, still rapid though not racing as it had been mere minutes before. But outside of the prime minister's office, outside of their little bubbles of intimacy, she won't give him such information easily. Not anymore.  
  
"You've already made our travel arrangements for St. Petersburg. Are you so eager to be rid of me, Mr. Holmes?"

 

The feel of her fingers tangled in his is a strange new intimacy, and a sign that she was probably very aware of where he wanted to hold her, how he wanted to feel her pulse. She would always challenge him, and he liked that.  
  
"I made them at the same time as six other arrangements, in order to throw my brother off track," he replied. "But you, conversely, have made arrangements on your own."

 

"I prefer to think of them as opportunities," she answers. The Rosenbad's halls remain sparsely populated, the solitary politician they had seen earlier nowhere to be found.   
  
She leads him towards the stairs, a different way out of the building than the elevator they had come up. "Let me see your camera phone," she says, changing the subject. "I should at least have some editorial say in what precisely we send the British Government."

 

He holds the phone in his other hand, just outside of her reach.  
  
"I think sometimes the best commentary is the kind that has no words at all." He had, after all, every intention of simply sending the photos without any words whatsoever. To let Mycroft make his own commentary.  
  
He does lead the way to the door and tucks the phone back in his pocket.

 

A chuckle at that. "Obviously, but I expect I have a better eye for which photographs are most salacious," she counters with a knowing smirk as they stepped back out into the Stockholm afternoon. She sways into him, her hip brushing his, the motion an implicit promise that she would pick his pocket given half the chance.

"Don't tell me you were planning on sending them _all_. We should only send the best."

 

"Only a choice few," he says. "That he can't use against us."  
  
By 'us', he really means 'her'. Sherlock has no worries about what Mycroft using anything against him, just what he might try to hold over the Woman. She is, after all, the Woman who nearly ruined Mycroft, and the one who ruined whatever Mycroft imagines is Sherlock's innocence.  
  
He flips to the one of the ropes against his back.  
  
"This one," he says.

 

The smile that curves her lips when she considers the photograph in question can only be accurately described as sinful.   
  
"Mmm, you do wear that one well," she agrees. There is absolutely no reason to lean in close, of course, no reason to press up against him, but she does anyway. A momentary indulgence even as she plays, the silk of the tie, now a scarf around her neck, fluttering in the breeze off the river. "And at least one of the collar. With the hand holding the leash."

 

"I'll make certain to crop it a bit more," he agrees. He plucks the cigarette from behind his ear and puts it to his lips.  
  
The intimacy of this isn't lost on him. The way they're pressed together as they walk, the game they're playing with Mycroft, even these photographs. Everything they do together as of late is laced with intimacy.  
  
He lights the cigarette.

 

She allows the intimacy, revels in it almost, because it will not last. Irene indulges herself with the certainty of Moscow looming. She stops long enough to reach up, to light her own cigarette with his, before she answers.  
  
"Cropping the photographs? Are you being overprotective again, Mr. Holmes?"

 

"Cautious," he replies. He takes his own cigarette back from her. They could be almost normal, here, like this. Smoking and walking hand-in-hand.  
  
They aren't, of course. They never would be.

 

She smirks as she wraps her lips around her now-lit cigarette, taking a slow drag. She does not answer until she has exhaled, watching the smoke plume dissipate into the air.   
  
" _Over_ cautious," she objects.

 

He smirks just a little at that. Perhaps he is a little overcautious. With Mycroft, the man capable of lying to Sherlock and convincing him with only a look, caution is always necessary. He can remember a time when his brother wasn't the enemy. It simply seems like a time of innocence, a time before knowledge.  
  
He considers the Woman. Will there be a time that he considers this comfort, this rapport between them, to be innocence as well? A lack of knowledge?  
  
"Do you trust me?" he asks, suddenly. He is surprised by the question posing itself.

 

She stops, surprised by the question.   
  
There is no doubt in her mind to the answer. After all, hasn't she trusted him throughout this holiday? Trusted him in Kotor to keep her secret. Trusted his intelligence over his high in Las Vegas. She's trusted him with her life and her death on multiple occasions, and yet the question remains.  
  
"You don't love me, Mr. Holmes. And I won't trust you," she answers, her words quiet. She gestures with the cigarette, her motion encompassing them, Stockholm, their holiday. "Not outside of this."

 

In a way, he is relieved by her words. If she were to admit to trusting him, he'd find himself admitting he trusted her, too. And that is, of course, completely unsafe for them, and too far out of their sphere of comfort. The rest of the world might not understand, but she would.  
  
"Love is irrelevant," he replies. "And would be akin to insulting what we---"  
  
He considers his words.  
  
"---have developed."

 

The amethyst and diamond ring winks brightly on her left hand as she brings the cigarette back to her lips for another long draw. "Don't try to define this," she says, her voice thoughtful as she watches the smoke dissipate into the air.   
  
She gives him a sidelong look, a smirk. "Leave it a pressing case. You'll need more _actual_ mystery in your life when Sherlock Holmes returns triumphant from the dead."

 

"Not a case I suspect will ever grow cold," he replies.   
  
There is, after all, no mystery quite like the Woman.  
  
He watches her hand move, thinking about the heavy ring on his own finger. He won't keep it after they have separated, of course. No need for sentiment. Or, perhaps, he will place it in the same drawer as her mobile, a symbol of what transpired and what it meant.

 

She considers the cigarette again, decides against it, and tosses it to the ground, grinding it to cold ash beneath her foot as they walked. Towards arranged travels, towards St. Petersburg, one step closer to Moscow, to becoming Irene Adler again.   
  
"You'll miss me long before then," she agrees. Then she adds, carefully off-hand, "Care to play chauffeur in St. Petersburg, Mr. Holmes?"

 

"Chauffeur." Sherlock sounds dubious. "Or would you prefer a bodyguard?"

 

She chuckles at his tone. "I think _you'd_ prefer I had a bodyguard," she teases. "But it'd hardly suit the game I want to play."

 

"You remember that I'm not John Watson," he says. "I know you are more than capable on your own."  
  
But he would have liked to have the excuse to have a weapon with him, particularly since he did not know the exact nature of her meeting in St. Petersburg.  
  
"I think I would be better suited in a different role."

 

"Something tells me you already have a role in mind, even if you have no idea what my plans are." She does not pretend _not_ to be smug. She wants to provoke him.

 

"A bodyguard," he replied, sounding somewhat annoyed. "As I'd said."  
  
He was, of course, very curious to what her plans were. Not that he would admit it. He had an idea. But not certainties. Not enough information.

 

He doesn't ask, but his annoyance tells her that he doesn't know, and her smile grows. It is enough, in her mind, to annoy and irritate him, to needle him with the knowledge that she knows he doesn't know.  
  
There are times she likes to make him beg. This is not one of them, not when she is pleased enough with herself to want to share.  
  
"A dominatrix hardly needs a bodyguard," she tells him. "It'd make her client think he has far more power than he actually does."

 

"So someone who has a normal amount of power, perhaps one that might easily leave a submissive role," he says.

 

She arches an eyebrow in response. "What makes you think you're coming with me?"

 

"Chauffeur," he says. "Or is someone coming to you?"

 

"Chauffeurs stay in the car," she reminds him. She cannot resist a dig, however, and adds, "Until they're called for."

 

"And you think that I'd simply come when called," he says.

 

"Of course not," she scoffs, shifting the bag on her shoulder. "I fully expect you to protest and insist on a greater role no matter how inappropriate." She smirks smugly at him over her shoulder. "And then you'll get irritable for being predictable."

 

His attitude becomes instantly more sour. He's not predictable. Except, perhaps he is.  
  
"Would you rather I wait in the hotel room?" he asks. "Considering my predictability?"

 

Her smirk grows, partly because he is being delightfully predictable, partly because she knows her pleasure will irritate him more.  
  
And partly, though she will never admit it, because she enjoys _this_ , this teasing push, the play between them that could not exist if they were wholly their facades.   
  
"And if I say yes? Would you insist on coming with just to be contrary?"

 

"And if you say 'no', then I'll be unpredictable in my agreeability," he replies, smirking just slightly at her words.  
  
In actuality, he has no doubt that he could leave the Woman to her tasks on her own, and she would come out unscathed. It is purely sentiment that is keeping him following her to this rendezvous with her potential victim. They have only two more places to travel before the holiday is through. He wants to take advantage of them. Revel in them.  
  
Sentiment is keeping him from focusing. But he can worry about pushing away sentiment when the holiday is over.

 

"Then it would seem I have very little choice in the matter."  
  
Not that she minds. Moscow looms, and with it the knowledge that their holiday will soon be over, that these moments of connectivity will fade away to become nothing but pleasant crystalline memories. That he will be Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, again, and she will become Irene Adler, dominatrix and consulting criminal, in very little time.  
  
She throws him a glance over her shoulder. "There's a man in St. Petersburg. Well connected. I never did have the chance to figure out if he were part of the spider's web and extraordinarily good at it or simply well connected."

 

"Do you have a name?" Sherlock asks, taking a drag on his cigarette. "He might relate to the web I was disrupting. I had quite a bit planned for Asia."

 

A laugh, at once teasing and delightedly amused, answers his question. She does, however, notice his use of the past tense. Had. The implication that his plans were no longer active, the recognition of a certain understanding between them.  
  
She does not dwell on that.  
  
"I do. But I hope you don't think I'll just offer it up so easily."

 

He shrugs. "Worth a try."  
  
He doesn't continue to pry. He'll figure it out, eventually, and at some point before he drives her to the location of the rendezvous.  
  
"Mycroft will begin his hunt anew after he's cleaned up whatever he believes we left behind here," he says. "Possibly with more vigilance, if that's at all possible."

 

She continues on, not looking back at him. It is, for a moment, almost as if she hasn't heard him at all. But she answers, eventually, still looking ahead.  
  
"Does it actually matter if he finds us in St. Petersburg or Moscow?" she asks. A light breeze tugs at the silk restraint-turned-scarf around her throat. "He'll have you back, soon enough."

 

"It matters to him," he says. "He'd much rather take me forcefully----"  
  
The _from you_ is almost spoken, but swallowed at the last moment.  
  
"---than have me given up willingly."

 

She pauses, almost expectant (she refuses to be expectant), at the barely perceptible pause in his speech. There is something there, just on the tip of his tongue, that is hidden again. She suspects it is a potential slip, sentimentality, but their fictions grow more important with each passing day, each step closer to the end, even as they indulge.  
  
"Then for once Mr. Holmes and I have something in common," she says lightly, a teasing smile on her lips.  
  
A pause. "Following us to St. Petersburg will be simple. Let him think we're slowing." She reaches for her mobile, and pulls up travel websites, scanning potential points of destination from St. Petersburg. Her tone is serious again. "Let him think we've made for Perth."

 

"He'll never believe I went to Perth," Sherlock says, rolling his eyes. "Even _I_ can't get that desperate."

 

She looks over her shoulder at him, and there is a calculation in her eyes, a set of the lips, of the brow, that he no doubt recognizes by now, that something is taking shape in her mind. A plan, still nebulous.  
  
"He thinks you're clouded by sentiment," she replies. A grudging correction. "That we both are. Montreal no doubt convinced him of that. You of all people know that sentiment makes people idiotic. Desperate."

 

"Perth," he repeats, giving her a look of disdain. Still, she is right. And Mycroft would think the way Sherlock does, and immediately be suspicious, then suspicious again because he would be aware that Sherlock would be aware of his suspicion.  
  
"Put a wig on Moran, send him as a decoy," he replies, waving his hand as though accepting the idea. "As you said, it hardly matters at this point. He's far enough behind us that we should make it to Moscow without interference."

 

She expects either immediate agreement to Perth, or a drawn out argument. She does not expect a quick protest then acquiescence. But there is time, she thinks, to figure out what he has up his sleeve. Time enough, at least.

"Deigning to allow Moran to be your decoy? Now I'm suspicious if I'll ever get him back."

She does not tell him that she has yet to _completely_ secure Moran's cooperation. She knows it is extremely likely, but she does not tell him all the same.

 

"Perhaps Mycroft will see the difference and shoot him," Sherlock says, irritably. "Might be good for my brother, to do something himself, rather than put all of the burden on others."  
  
He wonders, idly, just how much control the Woman has over Moran. He imagines quite a bit, and if she doesn't, she will. The Woman's capabilities are her--- _charm_ isn't the right word. But there are very few "right words" for what they have.

 

"Suddenly changing your mind to take down _my_ resources as well as Moriarty's?" she asks, resting a hand on his arm.   
  
She knows that is unlikely, that he knows she is too much the scorpion. But then she had not expected he would try to bring Irene Adler back from the dead, or back to London either.

 

"Simply suggesting cutting the limb off before it becomes cancerous," he replies.  
  
Her hand on his arm is warm, secure, and solid. He remembers that Moran saved her life back in San Salvador. He hates to admit that, but it is still a reality. He feels, oddly enough, that he still owes Moran a debt from that. Sherlock's shoulder may ache for the rest of his life, but the Woman is still alive.

 

She refuses to think on how she has gotten used to the casual touches, to the feel of his arm under her hand, to the now-familiar way he walks beside her. Rarely ever ahead, but apace. But she does think about how Moran's steps are lighter, restless and stalking, and Sibyl's arm is delicate, thin and birdlike.  
  
"If I recall correctly, the last time you tried to make a decision about which branches to prune without me was in San Salvador," she answers, her other hand ghosting unthinkingly over her leg and the wound hidden beneath denim and disguise.

 

"And you, in London," he replies, casually. "How easily we hurt each other."  
  
They could easily blame their wounds on each other, they could blame them on themselves, too. If asked about his injury by, say, John Watson, Sherlock would reply that it was someone irrelevant. Because that is what Moran is, so long as he merely stays on the Woman's side. Perhaps that is how Sherlock will repay him; he will repay him in maintaining Moran's irrelevance.

 

She has to laugh at that, a chuckle that is almost rueful. But certainly not regretful. "Does that mean we're even or that you expect it's your turn again?"  
  
The city is pleasant, though the other pedestrians are dull, colourless things. Bankers and lawyers taking walks with their families.  
  
"You made travel arrangements. By air or by land?"

 

"Neither," he replies, with a secretive smile.


	4. The Danger of Boredom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their mischief in Stockholm complete, Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler find themselves on the water, crossing the Baltic Sea towards St. Petersburg. The trip is not long, and they are, for the moment, without plans. Can either of them abide being idle, or will they prove out an old saying about idle hands?

The St. Peter Line is a ferry---or more accurately, a _cruise_ of sorts---that crosses the Baltic Sea. A direct route from Stockholm to St. Petersburg. It is a cruise filled with happy couples, with excited travelers, and with very few children. Sherlock is especially grateful for the last. He's rather had his fill of children.  
  
He wonders, idly, if he'll miss being able to pose as half of a couple. The touches that he and the Woman share have moved from being almost entirely show, to being partially familiar, and partially character. He is not, of course, in any technical relationship with her, but still they have a rapport that he will---no, _miss_ is not the right word (or is it?).  
  
He leans on the railing, looking out over the sea as he lights his cigarette. John has begun posting to his blog again, this time about their former adventures. Sherlock isn't certain what that means. Perhaps he has found some sort of closure? Difficult to tell. He flips through his new mobile and takes a drag on his cigarette.

 

The breeze coming off the Baltic Sea feels distinctly different to Irene, fresh and cold without the bite of sea salt. It is not unpleasant, but it is different, and a part of her thinks there is a finality to it. There are messages waiting on her mobile, from Sibyl about arrangements being made, from a certain Dmitri Cassel-Felstein of St. Petersburg, and one that she has not yet read, from an unknown number but that she knows is from Moran.  
  
"Bored already, Mr. Holmes?" she asks, joining him at the railing. She nods at the cigarette in his hand. "You're smoking again."

 

"Thinking," he replies. "Returning to London also means returning to a life of not-smoking, and I'm trying to enjoy it while I have it."  
  
He could, of course, say the same for his time with the Woman. A life back in London is a life with only the occasional holiday to see her, so long as they both stick to the bargain that they will see each other again. He may not be able to delete her from his mind, but he will certainly endeavor to delete the feeling of emptiness he gets at the thought that she will only appear occasionally throughout his life, if at all.  
  
He offers her the pack from his pocket.

 

She studies him for a moment, her eyes searching his face, and after a moment a small smile tugs at her mouth, and she takes a cigarette from his proffered pack.  
  
"Indulging dangerous habits in more ways than one," she says, slipping her hand into his pocket for his lighter.

 

He nods, and looks away. He doesn't like this feeling, just above his stomach. It tastes like disappointment but feels like regret. Moscow isn't for a few days yet, but it still looms there, waiting. When he left John in London, it was decided in a matter of hours that he would leave. He didn't have the chance to regret, to second-guess. To think about the possibility of _missing_. Where John stays frozen, immobile in Sherlock's mind in his absence, he knows the Woman continues on. She moves like a cat, and he only catches a glimpse of her world.  
  
He'll envy wherever she ends up. London, for a time, he doesn't doubt. But not forever.  
  
"It is for the best," he says. "Separating before we tire of one another."

 

She takes his lighter, lights her own cigarette with brisk efficiency, and draws in a deep breath of smoke and nicotine. Irene twirls the lighter between her fingers, lets the smoke fill her lungs, before exhaling, the act almost a sigh of streaming smoke.  
  
She will miss this. Sibyl will be earnest, playful and eager to learn. And Moran will be competent, if dull. But neither will be _interesting_ , neither will challenge her in the way that Sherlock Holmes does. And she will miss it. Even if she knows they cannot last.  
  
"Do you expecting me to disagree, out of sheer contrariness?" she asks, slipping the lighter into her own pocket.

 

"Woman, we both know I've learned not to expect things from you," he says. A lie, of course. He expects some things from her, but in this case, he doesn't know. He doesn't know what he wants her to say. It's an uncomfortable thing, not knowing himself. He rarely does when it comes to the Woman.  
  
"I think we're both aware that I'm right, of course," he says. "As I usually am."

 

She snorts in response and takes another drag from the cigarette contemplatively.  
  
A couple, two middle-aged women, one a divorce lawyer and the other a writer of some sort, pass by, taking the air, and Irene shakes her head, letting out another breath, feeling the pleasant buzz of nicotine stream into her blood. She shakes her head, watching the smoke dissipate into the air, not looking at him as the Baltic breeze tugs her hair out of its tail. Still, without looking, she sets her hand on the railing, her fingers resting on his.  
  
"Don't, Mr. Holmes," she says. "Sentimentality doesn't suit either of us."

 

"I wouldn't," he says. "Sentiment is found in the losing side."  
  
He turns to look at her. The breeze in her hair, the smoke twisting around her face. She's sensual to look at. She's---even after how much time he's been with her, he still finds her enticing.  
  
"Neither of us plan to lose, do we?"

 

She turns to look at him then, and her smile is softer, fond, even.  
  
"No. We don't."  
  
A pause, as she considers her secrets, decides there is one she will share. "Dmitri Cassel-Felstein," she tells him. "The man I expect to meet in St. Petersburg."

 

Sherlock raises an eyebrow.  
  
"I don't recognize that name. Bohemian?"

 

A nod, and she turns back to the railing, takes another drag on the cigarette, reaching into her pocket for her mobile again. She tabs through the notifications screen quickly, though she expects he will notice the messages. Three from Sibyl, one from the unknown number that she is certain is Moran, one from Dmitri. The last being the one she chooses, a text that details the particulars of the hotel where she is to meet him, his particular desires.  
  
"Bohemian by way of the Hungarians, if you believe his political campaign. More likely by way of Warsaw and less romantic dealings."

 

Sherlock's eyes are on her phone, even as he types in the man's name into his own search bar. He sees the texts from Sibyl, the woman that is to become the Woman's liaison and personal assistant, of sorts. And the unknown number. Sherlock doesn't recognize it. It could be anyone, but he narrows the list down to three. Sebastian Moran, Mycroft Holmes, or someone related to the men on the Orient Express. He'd have to see the texts to know for certain. The Woman's ambition often exceeded her grasp, but she usually found someone to stand on to bring it within reach.  
  
He glances down at his mobile. "Engaged to be married. Shoulders two inches apart in the photographs, he can't stand to be around the woman. Look at the length of her nails, she's clearly too much of a prude for anything he's asking you for."

 

"A political marriage, in all senses of the word," she agrees, locking her own mobile again before she leans in close to peer at the search results brought up on his. The breeze continues tugging at her hair, and she pushes an unruly strand behind her ear with little patience, the cigarette in her hand all but forgotten for the moment.  
  
"She's pedigreed. Old Russian family, well known name. The family's got a bit of money trouble, if rumours are to be believed. The alliance will give his political ambitions legitimacy, and hers the ability to avoid slipping into genteel humiliation." Irene wrinkles her nose. "She probably still thinks marriage means to lie back and think of Mother Russia."

 

"And you'll acquire what? Photographs? Something scandalous to hold over him?"  
  
Sherlock leans his head just a little towards her, and the smell of her hair overpowers that of the water and the cigarettes.

 

His proximity takes the edge off the chill brought on by the Baltic breeze, and Irene finds herself leaning into him. She wonders briefly what the couple who were still walking would make of them. Just another pair of lovers, no doubt, bent over some private joke.  
  
Irene does not think about how true that might be.  
  
"Perhaps I just want an opportunity to be the dominatrix again," she teases, tilting her head until she rests against his shoulder. She doubts he'd believe it. She doesn't. She wants to be the dominatrix again, yes, but she wants to be Irene Adler more, and that is more than just the dominatrix. Irene Adler traded in secrets. And the Russian politician would have secrets a plenty.  
  
"You can't have _all_ my secrets so easily."

 

A smirk touches the edges of his lips.  
  
"Were you ever the dominatrix? _truly_?" he asks.

 

She arches an eyebrow at him and traces a finger along his wrist, following the line of a set of pins buried inside plush handcuffs.  
  
"Forgetting London, Mr. Holmes?"

 

"Never," he replies, remembering the night vividly. "But you're about more than just _that_ game. About more than just the control."  
  
He moves his head so that he's just whispering in her ear, above the roar of the boat in the water.  
  
"You like the _power play_. And not just for being in control. You like to know you could lose it."

 

A low laugh, soft and sensual and deeply amused, rises from her throat and she has to resist the urge to shiver at the anticipation that shoots up her spine at his words, at the intimate brush of his lips near her ear.  
  
Her own smile is razor sharp as her nails trace along his wrist, her own voice like velvet over steel. "Well now, that's a very bold guess. Are you imagining you could try?"

 

"I imagine someone would want to," he says. His eyes drift from hers to just over her shoulder. A couple, French, stand over her shoulder, some distance away, watching them.  
  
"He doesn't recognize us, but I recognize him," he says.

 

She doesn't turn to look, barely even has to squash the urge. If there is anything like trust between them, she thinks, it is trust in the puzzle, a belief in their mutual desire to play the game to its inevitable conclusion of mysteries solved and other people's truths laid bare.  
  
She remains looking out over the water, her fingernails trailing light curlicues against his wrist, her head tilted just so to catch his murmured words (assumed to be affectionate nonsense, and hers in kind).  
  
"A friend of a mutual friend, or do you recognize him from a case?" she murmurs back.

 

"More recent than that," Sherlock replies. "Only recently arrived on this side of the world. From Los Angeles."  
  
He turns his eyes back to hers.  
  
"The universe is rarely so boring as to allow for coincidences."

 

She looks intrigued as he turns back to her, and Irene chances a moment to glance back at the French couple as she ostensibly catches a tangled lock of hair to tuck behind her ear.  
  
"Los Angeles? Rather far afield for a Frenchman, wouldn't you say?"

 

"She had the ball gag in her bag, you had guessed," he says. "They were going to the same casino we were. And now, here they are."

 

Hair caught and tucked behind her ear, Irene turns just enough to catch the couple in her field of vision. "Once could be happenstance, twice, less so," she agrees, turning away from the couple and back to Sherlock again. "Recent bruises on his knuckles. But no signs of a domestic dispute."

 

"He's submissive to her," he says. "And she knows about his bruises."  
  
And they're both fascinated with the Woman.

 

Her eyes all but sparkle at his words, at the familiar game they play and the little threads they pull out of the nigh invisible clues the people around them leave behind.  
  
"Oh you are getting better," she says, tossing her head back, heedless of how the breeze threatens to pull it all out of sorts again. "She's in it for the power, not the sex. Makes him fetch her breakfast on his hands and knees, explains the bruises."

 

"One possible explanation, yes," he replies. He isn't as skilled as she is at reading people's _likes_ and _dislikes_ , but he can read arousal. He can see the woman's dilated pupils, the flush of her cheeks.  
  
"She's immensely interested in you," he says.

 

Irene laughs and turns on her heels, as if he has said something meaningless but witty enough to be rewarded with laughter. She rests her elbows on the railing and leans back, every line of her body relaxed and indulgent. The position also allows her a better shot to view the French couple.  
  
She takes a drag from the long forgotten cigarette, coaxing the cooling embers to light again. "And he's interested in her interest," she remarks around the cigarette. "She's imagining dragging me back by the hair, no doubt. He'd soil himself on the spot if he knew."  
  
An arched eyebrow, and she blows smoke at him, the breeze carrying it away. "But since when where you so interested in what people like, Mr. Holmes?"

 

"More interested in the fact that they're here," he says. The smoke goes in his nostrils as she blows it towards him, but it's far from unpleasant. "A rather unusual jaunt from America."  
  
And, if he's honest, he's curious about the woman's interest. He has seen many people interested in the Woman before. She is beautiful, mysterious, seductive, and alluring, so he can completely understand the attraction. She has seduced a number of women in their time together. At the same time, there is something _predatory_ in this woman's interest. It strikes Sherlock as almost dangerous.  
  
"I imagine you would prefer to do the hair-pulling."

 

Another laugh. Another drag on the cigarette, and a carefully considered toss of her head that displays the pale length of her throat to full advantage. The woman watching them notices, exactly as Irene expects she would.  
  
"I think you know quite well my thoughts on hair pulling, _without_ having to resort to imagination," she answers. Irene tilts her head, considers the couple without looking at them. "Dominance of the kind she likes is simple. Power for the sake of having someone quiver at her feet to validate her own worth. Easy to predict, but not terribly interesting. Or useful."

 

"And that, Woman, is what makes you more than just a dominatrix."  
  
Sherlock, too, notices the arch of the Woman's neck, the length of her throat. He notices it less for the physical aspect of her throat, but more for the care she takes in the motion, the way she is manipulating the movement of the couple's eyes down her body simply by a slight change in position.  
  
"It's hardly useful, sex for power," he suggests.

 

His suggestion earns him a raised eyebrow, accompanied by a skeptical look. It comes to mind that when their holiday ends, after she walks away in Moscow, that these are the moments she will recall most fondly from their holiday. The moments when their innate desires to win are bent to a goal outside of emotion, when their attempts to one up each other tease at a puzzle.  
  
The way the breeze tries to pull at his re-darkened curls, the way his eyes pick up the colour of the Baltic sea as they linger, not on cream-coloured skin but on the motives behind each motion... Those would be memories tucked away, things that were hardly relevant to anything at all. She was, after all, not Sherlock Holmes, she did not delete her memories with ruthless efficiency. She kept them all, combing them for secrets when necessary. It would not be necessary to comb these for secrets. But she would not forget them all the same.  
  
"Clearly I haven't been as thorough an instructor as I should have been if you still believe that," she tells him with a hint of dry humour. "Or are you referring strictly to our interesting friends?"

 

He lets out a low chuckle at that.  
  
"I said _useful_ , Woman. Not pleasurable."  
  
After all, very little that was pleasurable was really useful. Smoking, while pleasurable, took up time and oxygen consumption while only acting as a carcinogen in return. Drug usage was pleasurable, but was the exact opposite of useful. And sex---well, for reproductive use, he supposes it must be useful, but not in the way that he and the Woman have engaged in it. And as a use as a power tool, even less so.  
  
"Like this holiday," he says. "Pleasurable, but not---" He pauses, considering. "No. No, this has been useful. I've learned quite a bit about a number of things. And you've begun acquiring an army of your own."

 

That makes her laugh, her own low chuckle pleased and all but brimming with genuine amusement. Not simply at his reconsideration, but at the fact that he admits out loud it has been pleasurable at all.  
  
Perhaps it is simply like their fragile moments of emotionally exhausted intimacy. The knowledge that this holiday will end allows them to indulge in sentiment, knowing it will pass.  
  
"An army rather than a web. If he was a spider, does that make me a general or a queen?"

 

"A general lacks in delicacy, a Queen is a title betrayed by sentiment and gender," Sherlock replies. "No, Woman. You would certainly be a King. One whose title is wrangled from the ashes of a dead ruler."  
  
_And honey, you should see me in a crown._  
  
"I imagine you'll wear his crown quite well," he adds. And that is the end of his compliments, as he flicks the cigarette overboard and starts to walk down the deck, away from the adoring couple.

 

She does not remind him of Elizabeth or Mary or the She-Wolf of France, of queens whose reigns were not betrayed by their gender or their sentiment. She does not, because the compliment is not in the historical accuracy of his words, but in the ghost of the late Jim Moriarty and the legacy she is embracing.  
  
She does not laugh, simply watches him go for a few moments, counting the steps he takes. She smiles, knowing he cannot see her for the moment, soft and fond and pleased in a way that she does not often allow herself, and takes another drag from her cigarette before grinding it to ash beneath her foot.  
  
A quarter turn allows Irene to meet the interested couple's eye, and she sneers, just insolent enough that it makes the woman's lips thin, makes the woman consider again just what it would be like to break her. She turns then, denying the couple more than a glimpse of possibility, and follows Sherlock Holmes along the deck.  
  
She takes the moment to peruse Moran's text, and sends Sherlock a text.  
  
`We'll see how far you get if you think I'll be content to simply wear ``_his_`` crown.`

 

He flips open his mobile and smiles down at the text. He doesn't look back, but knows that the couple has either lost interest, or she's piqued it.  
  
` His crown was built on madness and deceit. You only have one of those qualities. More or less.`  
  
He thinks about the woman on deck, of the ribbon holding her hair back. He turns to the passenger decks.

 

The text gives Irene pause, and she looks down at it, her own lips curving into a sharp smile. It is, possibly, one of the most complimentary things Sherlock Holmes has ever said to her. And the knowledge that he admits it is simply another reminder that their holiday was ending.  
  
A discreet cough at Irene's elbow catches her attention, and in the reflection of the mobile she can see the French man waiting, his eyes downcast. She locks her mobile before turning, regarding him with cool, haughty disinterest, and he all but throws a folded note at her.  
  
The paper is cheap, a hasty scrap from a purse or a complimentary notepad, but the scrawl on it is clear. The woman's hand, sharp and impetuous, the lines heavy. And on it nothing more than a time and a room number of one of the rooms on board the ferry.  
  
Irene arches an eyebrow at the man, who glances back at his mistress for instruction, but before he can open his mouth again, she says, "We shall see."  
  
She sweeps past him, catching up to Sherlock, the ghost of her smirk on her lips. "Do you think you can behave yourself without me for a few hours, Mr. Holmes?"

 

He only briefly glances in her direction, a smirk of his own appearing.  
  
"Did he approach you, or did she?" he asks. "It was him, yes? The subservient one."  
  
He nods ahead of them, to the passenger deck. "Hair ribbon, hastily applied. Something from a previous liaison by its material. Could be the ribbon from a curtain on the decks, used as a binding for his wrists, then as a reminder for later. The room number is obvious from the walk, only one room has only half of the valance down."

 

She pointedly slips the paper into her pocket, neither confirming nor denying his deductions as she pulls her own hair out of its tie and gathers back the wisps that have escaped before returning the tail to the nape of her neck.  
  
"Elementary deductions at best," she scoffs, deliberately dismissive. "I'd be more impressed if you've already deduced what I plan to do with their invitation."

 

"Mmmm," he says, turning back to her. "Your eyes are slightly dilated. Not flushed, though. Hardly surprising, the two of them are attractive, but hardly a challenge."  
  
He smiles again, this time with genuine pleasure. "The game is more fun."  
  
And this is why Sherlock Holmes finds himself so---so _smitten_ with Irene Adler. She knows what is truly important. The game, the puzzles, the deductions, the _solving_.

 

She hums with approval at his realization, because she knows he will recognize it, but the fact that he does still pleases her, reminds her that here is someone who understood the thrill of the game as no one else in the world can.  
  
" _Much_ more fun," she agrees, resting her hand on his arm, fingers tapping lightly, nonsensically, against his forearm. "She wants to break an insolent submissive across her knee. The question is would she notice if she were the one being broken?"

 

"To bring a dominatrix to her knees," he says, nodding with approval. "Now _that_ would be a challenge."  
  
He turns slightly, away from the passenger cabins.  
  
"I suppose I should find somewhere to continue smoking while I can."

 

Her smile grows as she gives him a sidelong look, and Irene runs her fingertips along his arm until she takes him by the wrist and pulls him to her for a fierce, bruising kiss. She can taste the cigarette on his tongue, the now-smudged lipstick on her mouth. And her eyes shine with anticipation, her pupils dilated.  
  
"Don't stay too close, Mr. Holmes," she teases, releasing her grip on his arm. "Or I might start to think you're worried."

 

He isn't expecting the kiss, but he accepts it and returns it eagerly when she kisses him. She draws things out of him, she always has, and in this moment, it's a fleeting sense of possession. He can never possess the Woman. That would be like possessing mystery or enticement---an idiotic and sentimental thing to try to hold onto oneself. But he allows that sentiment for a brief breath, the breath with which he kisses her. And then he steps back as she releases him.  
  
"Don't stray too far, Woman," he replies. "I'll start to believe you want me to be."

 

The eagerness with which he returns the kiss after his initial surprise sent a thrill down Irene's spine, and it stays with her like the mingled taste of cigarettes and lipstick on her tongue. It adds to her disguise, adds a touch of genuine desire to the insolent woman that so attracted the couple.  
  
She tells herself that is the reason why she did it, because it is certainly a far better reason, a far less sentimental reason, than because she enjoys it, because she wants him on her lips as she plays the game.  
  
A laugh, and she tosses her head as she saunters down the passenger deck, towards the room with its valances half-drawn. "I'll leave you to your deductions," she tells him over her shoulder.  
  
She has, she thinks, just enough time to pick said lock and take a turn about the room before the couple's amorous return.

 

There is no jealousy from Sherlock, just a knowledge that he's about to become very, very bored for the next---well, considering the amorous nature of the couple, few hours? And considering there's very little else to do on this ship, those few hours will be spent even more bored than before. He's read and re-read John's blog, and there's nothing new there. Anderson has started some odd group in London, but there's nothing truly interesting there, either.  
  
It's just him, on this ship. Alone, and not enjoying it.  
  
He watches people walk past him, when he realizes he's being stared at. Leered at, really. A dark-skinned woman from Norway with long, relaxed hair watches him from her seat on deck. She's attractive, he supposes. What is most attractive about her is what he can deduce from the slight discoloration on her right nostril and her long sleeved sweater. If he expresses return attraction, she might be willing to share whatever narcotics she has brought with her.  
  
It never occurs to him that faking attraction to the woman is wrong. If it will get him some sort of diversion, well. She is willing and he _can_.

 

The hall is empty, most of the passengers taking full advantage of the good weather and the view of the Baltic Sea, and it takes Irene mere moments to pull a few pins from her hair and set about studying the lock.  
  
It is cheap, mass manufactured, and painfully easy to pick. No one expects to be on the ferry cruise long enough to require true security, and the company's objective is to make money by moving passengers, not to ensure their luxury. Irene kneels, and after a moment begins picking said lock in earnest.  
  
She works the hair pins carefully, a small terse smirk of concentration on her lips, slowly turning to triumph as she shifts the tumblers into place. Her heartbeat does not race, but it does quicken as she works. The game was, after all, _thrilling_.

 

He estimates no more than ten minutes for the Woman to get into the couples' room, and then no more than another half hour before the amorous couple get bored and head back to their room. That leaves plenty of time to _flirt._ He does not understand flirting with people who are not the Woman, or even Jim Moriarty, to a point. He does not understand it in the way that he does not truly understand grief. He can fake it, when necessary. He had honed his flirting skills with Sally Donovan, and her subsequent attraction to him positively ruined their working relationship once he revealed she was no more than an exercise tool. She proceeded to have an affair with the forensic pathologist he despised the most, and Sherlock learned that practicing with one's working partners was a terrible idea. This woman---one Frannie, from Norway---would be perfect for flirtation, however, as she is unimportant and stupid enough to fall for every angle he tosses in her direction.  
  
The couple passes him on the way to their room. He allows his eyes to follow them, as though curious.  
  
" _There are places to stay here, to sleep?_ " he asks, his Norwegian passable. She finds his accent attractive.  
  
" _Among other things,_ " she replies, tracing a hand down the front of his chest. She is too forceful, too obvious. It hardly matters. She has cocaine, this much she has indicated. Acquiring it will be far less of a challenge than he thought.


	5. Three Assassins and an Overdose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes part temporarily for their own brands of diversion across the Baltic Sea. But will circumstances turn their separation into something more permanent?

Seven minutes and forty-two seconds and the lock to the couple's room swings open with a quiet click of resignation. Irene straightens, checks for passersby, and slips inside.  
  
The room itself is nondescript, much like the door, utilitarian, not meant for comfort. The valance is half drawn, and the sash holding the curtains in place is missing, its mate remains and matches the ribbon in the woman's hair. Irritation and exasperated fondness war for dominance for a moment on Irene's face, but is superseded by thoughtfulness as she studies the room.  
  
The woman, matron really, has the same bag as she had traveled with to Las Vegas. No doubt the same ball gag within. Worn case, heavy use. Fraying around the edge indicated where it bumped the street often. Usually light bag. The man's luggage is worn differently, his indicating weightier contents, no doubt he did the heavy lifting in the relationship. She would demand it.  
  
Patches on the carpet, in the corner, where the man had knelt, hands tied behind his back. A length of chain hastily looped around a bed leg. Exactly as expected. No riding crops, no bats, no paddles. She thought back to the woman's comportment, her hands. Yes, she _would_ favour a barehanded approach.  
  
A part of her wants to delve into their luggage, but everything she sees in the room is as expected and she weighs that her curiosity likely would not yield much more interesting fruit in their bags. A dominant woman, who preferred a more intimate touch, and a subservient partner who preferred the cold restraint of chains. Irene's mind races as she leaves the room again, shutting the door with a firm click behind her, turning down the hall as she hears the man and woman speak in low voices as they approach from the opposite side.  
  
She schools her expression into sneering insolence, shifts her weight such that she holds herself with loose limbed confidence, expecting the world to bow at her feet. Irene loosens the scarf at her neck, the filmy black silk now a subtle invitation to tighten, to pull. She musses her hair as well, and holds the hastily scrawled piece of paper between her fingers, a look of supreme boredom on her face as she approaches the now-occupied room and knocks firmly, twice.

 

" _We can party, if you want,_ " Frannie says. At least, he thinks that's what she says. The word for 'party' in her Norwegian is a little more colloquial, and he thinks it's referencing either sex or drug use. Frannie leans up, pressing her mouth to his jaw. Her lips are fuller, but slightly chapped. She smells like cigarettes and sweat.  
  
He follows her.  
  
Frannie stops at the first door in the hall, slipping her key out of her pocket and fumbling at the lock. Sherlock turns his head, and sees the Woman at the door, her hair slightly mussed, the note between two fingers, and a look of boredom on her face. A Woman entering battle, a battle she much enjoys.  
  
" _This is mine, sexy,_ " Frannie says. She giggles in delight, and hops inside, over to one of her bags. Sherlock steps inside after her, shutting the door.

 

The man opens the door, his eyes widening ever so slightly at her presence. He had not expected she'd take the invitation. Behind him in the room, the woman stands at the mirror, her eyes flinty as she glances over to see Irene reflected. Their eyes meet in the reflection, and Irene sneers again. The woman's lips thin, her eyes flickering over the reflected lines of Irene's body, lingering on the scarf at her throat.  
  
"Eliza," Irene drawls, tinting her voice with a touch of Cockney as she turns to the man. She holds up the note for him, rests it against his throat, draws it along his sternum. He swallows hard at the touch of her hand, and Irene ignores the woman again, turning the full force of Eliza's brash sexuality and boredom on the man. "Care to buy me a drink, poppet?"  
  
The man glances over at his mistress, uncertain, and Irene hides the smirk that threatens to tug at her mouth at the note of irritation in the woman's voice. "Invite our guest in, Stephen," she snaps.  
  
He moves immediately in response, waving Irene in, closing the door behind her. He offers her a seat in one of the room's two chairs, the submissive's chair, judging by the nearly unnoticeable trace of oil on said chair, deposited by bare skin. Irene drops into it loosely, chattering idly, self-possessed and bored, her attention focused utterly on the man rather than the woman in question.

 

Frannie is dull. Dull and amorous. She kisses like she has not kissed a great deal of people, which is unlikely given the fact that she is objectively attractive. All the same, once she has unbuttoned Sherlock's shirt in two places, she pulls out a small pouch of white powder, and draws them both a line.  
  
The first hit of the white powder indicates to Sherlock that it is, in fact, not cocaine. He would say some derivative of meth, or heroin, but not cocaine. He wasn't expecting the rush that he experiences, or the fact that his face suddenly feels very warm.  
  
A stimulant and, what? Mixed drugs are an interesting diversion. Far more interesting than Frannie undressing slowly.

 

The older woman finishes at the mirror, twisting her hair up into a tight, severe knot, and steps back into the main portion of the room, heading for her luggage. Irene murmurs something meaningless, a thinly veiled innuendo, to the man and he stutters back a response, glancing back at the woman for guidance.   
  
"Get up, and offer our guest a drink," the woman snaps, drawing her hand back out of the luggage with a rustle of paper. She circles around Irene, watching her with hard eyes, and draws the shades down. Irene tilts her head, eyes have shut, and studies the woman from beneath lowered lashes as the woman takes the other chair.  
  
"Let's not pretend with each other. We both know why you're here," the woman said, resting her hands on the arms of her chair, fingers drumming. "And it isn't because your name is Eliza, or you're looking for a spot of fun, Miss Adler."  
  
Irene freezes, and as if on cue (of course it was on cue) the man in question stops his adding of ice to a glass to step over to the door, blocking the exit.

 

Sherlock takes the offered glass bowl of cannabis, and takes one brief hit from it. He correctly guessed the mixed drug (heroin and cocaine. A mess, really, but one couldn't be too picky), and was reveling in his own brilliance.  
  
Frannie was topless, and looking increasingly irritated at him.  
  
"Am I bothering you?" he asks, offering her back the pipe.  
  
" _You're still wearing clothing,_ " she replies.  
  
"Yes, of course I am," he says. "I never had any intention of having sex with you. Obviously."  
  
Frannie's English isn't very good. Her eyebrows knit together. Sherlock stands, takes another line from the small mirror in her room, and heads for her door.  
  
Just happily high. Nothing too extreme. Just enough to forget the mundane.

 

Irene's eyes narrow even as she forces her expression back to neutral blankness. Her gaze sweeps the room again; what has she _missed_. No, she had been right about the man, about the carpet, about the chains.  
  
The chains, which now took on a more sinister colour, even though she knew the wear along the edges of the links were a match for the circumference of the man's wrists. Irene replays the last few minutes in her mind; she had been too assured, she'd missed something, she knows it.  
  
The woman had been cautious and noncommittal the entire time until... "You're not one of Moran's," Irene says, her words sharp, confident, the Cockney discarded. "If you were, you wouldn't have had to check your bags to be certain. A photograph, no doubt. You had your suspicions, but you weren't certain I was who I was until you checked your bags. And you're not government, not with that luggage."   
  
She refuses to look towards the man at the door, keeping her focus on the woman, the leader, though it is tempting, to turn her head just the slightest inch to the left, so that she could see the man's reflection in the mirror again. But no, she cannot show weakness, not when she is, for the moment, without the upper hand.  
  
"No, but you recognize me," the woman answers. "But then they say you would. Word travels, that you're like _him_."

 

He opens the door, and Frannie squeals, embarrassed of her nudity at first. She shouts at him, a swear word in Norwegian, and then throws her shirt in his direction. He stops, looks back at her, and continues on. The door is closed, the Woman must be enjoying her game. Sherlock has every intention of enjoying his, too. If only Frannie would let him.  
  
She shouts again, and something goes over his head. It's the cannabis pipe. She says something about how he's wasted her drugs, and he's a user, or something like that. He thinks that part of her noise level is how very, very high she is.  
  
" _Of course I used you,_ " he replies. " _It was hardly difficult._ "  
  
Another scream, and Frannie all but launches herself at him.

 

It does not taken Irene long to categorize her options. Not because she is brilliant, though she is, but this time because there are so few. Sherlock Holmes is not one of them, not when he thinks she is here to _play_. And despite his deference, the man at the door had height and mass advantage over Irene, as well as quite the impressive left hook, judging by his musculature.   
  
And there was the other woman as well. Age was a factor, but she is still outnumbered. Irene discards twenty seven possible scenarios, and opts to stall for time.  
  
"Baltimore to Las Vegas," she agrees, nodding to the bag. Irene keeps her body loose, her wrists away from the arms of the chair, away from each other to prevent them being caught together. She is far too mindful of the chain in the corner of the room. "You had that piece of luggage then too. Ball gag in the front pocket, harness in the bottom of the bag. Not your companion though."  
  
That gives Irene an opportunity to look over at the man in question, at the door he is standing in front of. "You're a new addition," she says, her pale eyes sweeping over him. "Been traveling together a month at least, judging by how well you've been trained." It will take her six steps to cross the room to the door. Four for the woman with her longer legs.   
  
Risky, that.  
  
She turns back to the woman, who looks at once stunned and trying not to show it. "Find him in Las Vegas? Is he a proper partner or an enforcer? His knuckles say the latter. Your fingernails say the former."

 

He doesn't expect the attack. His head is still fuzzy, and suddenly her nails are digging into his arm, one hand holding him, the other going for his eyes. She's stronger than her size would indicate. There's the sound of footsteps above him, someone running to see what's going on.  
  
He gives a shove, and pushes them both back into the room, moving his free hand to clamp over her mouth.  
  
This might look especially bad, he realizes, so he moves his foot to shut the door.  
  
"Shhhh," he hisses at the furious Norwegian. She elbows him, hitting the side that had the knife wound from Montenegro. He doesn't cry out, but the pain is enough to make him let her go.

 

The woman's lips thin in anger; she feels like she is losing the upper hand with Irene's casual observations, though Irene still does not have a _plan_. Pushing the woman from Las Vegas to anger at her loss of control, would make her sloppier, less careful, but it would make her more unpredictable as well. And unpredictability when she had no plan was not something Irene would risk, not right now.  
  
The woman shakes her head and rises from her chair. "You're like the other one," she accuses, towering over Irene, "The one he said was killing us all off one by one." The mention of a _he_ rather than the earlier 'they' catches Irene's attention, and she begins reviewing the facts, fitting the puzzle pieces, the scant clues the woman let fall, into place.   
  
The woman begins to pace, and Irene keeps her silence; no, this woman would not be Moran's, Moran knew better than this now, after Niagara Falls. Not Moran's, but not Moriarty's either. And for one moment Irene wished fervently that she had been able to take a look at Sherlock's map, his list of Moriarty's web, the contacts that she had, in a moment of utter sentiment in San Salvador, allowed to slip through her fingers with the promise of Moscow.  
  
"But you're the one who owns most of the Door now," the woman continues, thinking aloud as her companion grows more uncertain, taking his cues from his mistress. The door, the Door...   
  
_The Red Door_ , the casino in Las Vegas that Sherlock had wanted to take down. What was the man, the owner, the knife collector... _What was his name?_  
  
That single piece of the puzzle slams into place for Irene, and her jaw sets as she watches the woman mutter. "But they say you're with the other one. The one killing them. If you kill them all the Door's worthless."

 

She hits him in his side again. Speed, he thinks, or some sort of stimulant. A steroid, perhaps? Whatever it is, Frannie is _extremely_ versed in drugs. She hits him, he doubles over this time. Her hand goes down, and her fingers dig into his shoulder.  
  
The action is too deliberate. His mind is fuzzy, small and stimulated all at the same time, and he can't see what he's missing. He's missed something. A lot of somethings.  
  
Crease in trousers, mobile phone (new, purchased less than six months ago). She all but cried out as a drug user to him, yet she clearly lacked social interactions. No, there was---it was---  
  
She grips harder onto his shoulder. She leans down, and whispers in a true, clear Queen's English:  
  
"Go to sleep, Sherlock Holmes."  
  
Her fist comes down on the back of his head, and the world goes black.

 

"Van Statt," Irene murmurs quietly, the name finally coming to mind. The knife collector, or the would-have-been patricidal son? Her eyes narrow, and she steels herself to move, her fingers curling into loose fists.  
  
The man eyes her with growing nervousness as the motion of her hands catch his attention, even as the woman's attention grows distracted by her own confusion. "Florence..." the man, Stephen, begins. Irene curses inwardly; she is not yet ready to move but she cannot allow the man to draw the woman Florence's attention.  
  
So she moves.  
  
She throws herself out of the chair, instead of racing for the door, diving towards the opened luggage. She grasps the handle and swings it awkwardly towards Florence, who cries out when the luggage hits her side squarely. It gives Irene enough time, and she races for the door, hoping the equal shock to Stephen will keep him off-balance.  
  
She gasps when a hand closes over the scarf still at her throat and pulls tight.

 

He is not out for more than a few minutes. This, he decides, is lucky for him. He can smell heroin cooking nearby, and he sees that girl---Frannie, though the likelihood that that is her real name is diminishing---is crouched on the floor near him, running a spoon over a lit candle. An overdose, of course. A very simple, very likely way to kill Sherlock, and something even his brother might not dismiss as possible. He sees now that this is planned, that her drug prevalence and amorous nature was only a ploy to attract his attention.  
  
Was he really so obvious? He must have been.  
  
The thought that somehow the Woman planned this only shoots through his head once, briefly. He should be annoyed by the amount of trust he has placed in her, at the weakness his loneliness---because it certainly isn't jealousy---caused. But no, this, this was caused by someone who wanted him gone silently and quickly.  
  
Frannie turns her head to pick up a tie to act as a tourniquet, and Sherlock acts. He throws his legs up, aiming for her shoulders.

 

Her lungs strain for air, and her fingers claw at her throat, managing to work a digit between skin and silk, to give herself the briefest of reprieves as Stephen tightens his grip again.  
  
"Florence? Florence, are you well?" he asks, concerned, his head turned away from Irene. Over her own struggle to breathe, Irene hears a gasp. Florence. Still breathing.   
  
Irene pulls at the scarf at her throat, cursing herself for the loosened knot, and attempts to throw an elbow backwards, to knock her captor in the solar plexus, to drive him to loosen his grip. She considers her mobile, dismisses it. Not enough time.  
  
She jerks at the scarf, feeling the silk give a little more, and suddenly the breath is driven out of her again, thoroughly, as her vision blurs and pain blooms. Belatedly, she realizes she's been slammed against the door.  
  
" _Hold still_ ," the man insists, his hand now clapped against her throat. "Until Florence figures out what to do with you."

 

Frannie appeared stupid. Frannie appeared incompetent. Frannie was neither. Not only did she move from where he went to hit her, but she also moved faster, hit harder. Definitely professional.  
  
She wraps her legs around his midsection, and pins her forearm to his throat. He loses air immediately. He grips at her arm, struggling to keep her back, but she's too strong. She's stronger than he is. Definitely steroids.  
  
She grapples for the needle.  
  
He pushes back on her arm. "Is that how you're meant to do it? Can't make any mis---" No way he can finish that thought, she's already cut off his air again.

 

The first real twinge of fear hits Irene at the feel of the man's fingers against her throat, cutting through the momentary haze of her disorientation. She is immediately aware of just how little pressure it would take to cut off her air, how very vulnerable she is at the moment.   
  
She whimpers, and it is uncomfortable how easy the sound is coaxed from her throat, and goes limp, cowed and submissive, under the man's hand. The pressure on her neck eases, just a little, and Irene slips a hand into her pocket, dials the mobile in her pocket sight unseen.  
  
She cannot text with any certainty; all she can think to do is to call. And hope the mobile can pick up enough of the conversation that Sherlock will deduce what had happened.  
  
"Tell Van Statt his money is safe as long as I am," she gasps, her voice weak with the pressure on her windpipe. "You kill me and it all self destructs."

 

Her arms is around his throat, he can't breathe. All he can do is regress. The mind palace. There, his voice of reason, Molly Hooper, is telling him that he only has moments to live, if he can't work out a way out. Mycroft is reminding him of how stupid he is. John is waiting for him. Always waiting.  
  
And then there's the Woman. She's standing to his side, and she looks ultimately disappointed. Nude, mysterious, perfect. She stands there as though telling him that there's something very obvious that he's missed.  
  
His phone rings. By "rings", it actually sighs. The Woman's sigh. Deep, throaty, orgasmic. It's enough to startle Frannie.  
  
Sherlock throws Frannie over, and moves his whole body in her direction. It isn't until he hears the gasp, that he realizes what's happened. The candle, the needle, the whole setup, he's rolled her onto it.

 

Her words are less than well received, and Irene cries out, her pain unfeigned this time, as Stephen slams her into the door again. She is momentarily disoriented, blinking away spots of black and white from her vision.   
  
"What did you say?" Florence demands, her pain obvious in her voice. Irene feels a grim, fierce satisfaction at that.   
  
"You know about me," Irene answers, throwing her arm out when the hand around her neck tightens again, bracing herself for the blow that doesn't come. "You're connected to the casino owner. Henry Van Statt, isn't it? Clearly he's concerned about his holdings, whether or not he'll be safe, with criminals around the world dying left and right. That's what you want to know. Whether he and the people working for him are next?"

 

Frannie cries out. She shakes, and her body curls, and Sherlock imagines the shape of the metal candle holder, going directly into Frannie's spine, and the shattering of the cord, of the bone. Frannie seizes, and Sherlock straightens. Despite being high as all hell, he realizes that he doesn't actually care. She can die, and he will not be affected. Any evidence pointing towards him will be deleted by Mycroft, out of familial duty.  
  
He turns, and remembers the phone. The Woman wouldn't call, not when she's in the middle of sexual bliss. Something's wrong. His back hurts, his neck hurts, and he's swimming in the strange mixture of drugs Frannie gave him. She continues to seize as he closes the door to the room behind himself. Two doors over is the Woman. He starts towards her. He raises a hand and raps his knuckles against the door.

 

At the sharp, unexpected knock on the door, Irene's companions freeze, as does Irene. She, however, comes to her senses first, and reaches for the door knob. Her movements feel slow, clumsy, her fingers moving nowhere near as fast as she expects, and it takes two tries before she realizes the door is still locked, before she reaches for the deadbolt.  
  
By then, Stephen has shaken off his shock, and as her fingers unlatch the bolt, his grip tightens on her throat and her cry of surprise is choked off by the sudden lack of air.   
  
"Come back later!" Florence snaps at the door.

 

The world is swimming. Sherlock finds it very difficult to think. That is not the Woman's voice. He knows, because the Woman's voice sends lightning bolts down his spine that this voice doesn't send.  
  
"I'm sorry, miss," he says, his accent thick and Swedish. "I have a note from the captain. Very urgent. Regarding safety."

 

She recognizes his voice, Swedish accent or no, and the knowledge invigorates Irene. It is not that rescue is at hand; she refuses to require such, but confidence from the knowledge of reinforcements. She brings her foot down hard on her captor's leg, the low heel of her boot not quite as satisfying as a well-applied stiletto but still enough to surprise him, to make him loosen his grip on her neck.   
  
And as soon as he does, she breaks out of his hold, and is at the doorknob again, throwing the door open. But with the sudden light and movement, the world _spins_ , and Irene finds her legs suddenly unable to support her weight, and she pitches forward out of the room, catching her shoulder against the threshold.  
  
She is disheveled, with the beginnings of bruises red against her neck, her eyes wide and glassy. Why couldn't she _focus_?  
  
The world feels like it is swimming, though a familiar face in front of her remains a fixed point. The question is out of her mouth before she thinks, before she can explain, "Sherlock?"

 

The door is open, and Sherlock finds the Woman pitching forward, towards him. He doesn't hesitate to catch her. Catching her comes before looking in the room. He grips her, holding her towards him. The Woman's voice, the lightning she sends down his spine as she says his name.  
  
The anger he feels under his skin at the knowledge that she was hurt. Duped, yes, but they both were. No, she is injured. He sees the redness on her neck, the breathiness of her voice. He is going to kill someone. Right now.  
  
"Woman," he says, not bothering to hide the anger.

 

Stephen tries to restrain her before she makes it out the door, but as soon as he sees that they have been discovered, he freezes, straightens, and tries to smooth his expression into something bland, something innocent.  
  
"Thank goodness," he blithers. "From the captain, are you? That woman's mad, came in here throwing things--"  
  
Irene barely hears him, her legs are unaccountably shaky, her thoughts jumbled. The only solidity she manages to hold on to at the moment is the searing anger in his voice, that rings in her ears with the epithet that is more intimate than her name from his lips.  
  
"Concussion," she finally manages. She does not cling to him, but there is no denying she is not steady on her own two feet. She gestures towards the room. Thinks it's towards the room but she is not certain. She tries to add, "Friends of your casino owner in Las Vegas."

 

Her words do not make sense. "Watson money buying drug city." It's a classic misdirection of words that comes with a concussion. Concussion. Deep injury. Watson. Soulmate? Companion? Friend? Something along those lines. Drug city. The last time he did drugs like this was in Las Vegas. He thinks back. He can not recall the people in front of him. Perhaps they were simply deleted.  
  
The Woman is hurt. He holds her up.  
  
He looks at the man's chest, and imagines just how many times he can stab him just above the heart before he dies. The amount of pain he would have to face before death would take him. Sherlock would want more, more pain.  
  
"Yes," he replies. "I will take care of her."  
  
He has a choice, now. Revenge on the two in the cabin, or care for the Woman. He can't have both.

 

For a moment, Irene thinks her head is throbbing, hearing it pound in her ears, and it takes another moment for her to realize that what she mistakes for the pounding in her head is his heartbeat, that she is leaning against him, pressed against his chest, his arm around her. She should be offended by how trite it is, how utterly helpless she must seem, and tries to straighten, to stand on her own, but the world spins again and her grip on his arm tightens.  
  
"Harmless," she says, though it takes an incredible amount of effort to form the simple word. "I threw a suitcase at her."

 

He judges the man's intellect. He speaks one language apart from English, and by the way his shoes are laced, Sherlock anticipates that is German. Sherlock speaks clearly to the Woman in French.  
  
" _I will not let this pass_ ," he says, and he lets the door shut.  
  
The Woman is far more important than revenge.  
  
If that is not love, Sherlock truly does not understand the concept. He lifts her in his arms, her weight insignificant considering how high he feels.  
  
"Are you all right?" he asks.

 

The world spins again, and settles back to solidity. It takes her a second to realize it is because she is no longer on her own two feet, that she has been picked up. It reminds her of San Salvador, and for a moment Irene swears she can smell the scent of sickly sweet tropical flowers. But the moment passes, and she realizes she is less muddled, her thoughts coming clearer. Whether it is the simple passage of a few minutes time or the fact that her brain is no longer focused on both thinking and staying on her feet is hard to say.  
  
"Mild concussion. I just need a few minutes," she answers, letting her head rest against his chest. She doesn't protest being carried. Not yet. "Heart rate elevated. Abnormal breathing pattern," she continues, but the symptoms she names are not her own.

 

Her words come out mostly normally this time. Although _soft_ replaces _mild_ , the rest makes sense. She was hit in the head. Hurt. Concussed. Hurt.  
  
The people who hurt her should not infuriate Sherlock while he's high.  
  
He thinks of where he can take her, where she can be safe. The room where Frannie is either dead or dying seems to be the only option. He leads her to the door.  
  
She lists off the symptoms, and it's only a few seconds before Sherlock realizes she's discussing _him_.  
  
"Anger," he says. "And cocaine." A pause. "You were indulging. I was bored."

 

She blinks at the admission, the new piece of information, and laughs. She isn't certain whether the laughter is a product of the concussion or of her own amusement. Perhaps both.  
  
"That didn't take long. How will you survive when you're back in London," she asks rhetorically. Another moment, and she realizes he's stopped. A look at the door, long moment of thought. "Is this where you found your drug dealer?"  
  
Except her recovering brain replaces 'drug' with 'Sherlock Holmes.'

 

He considers her words, considers what connections something like his own name might mean to the Woman, and decides she must mean narcotics. Poison to the system, yet addictive.  
  
Oddly enough, it's also how he sees the Woman.  
  
"I should have realized it was far too simple a find," he replies. "This holiday is threatening to dull my senses."  
  
He pushes the door open, expecting to find Frannie on the ground, dying or dead, and he begins to work out an explanation to give the Woman upon her sight.  
  
The room is, however, empty. The candlestick, the needle, they're still in place, as is a large puddle of blood. But the assassin herself is gone.  
  
"Who were they?" he asks her. "Your amorous pair?"

 

She wants to say that perhaps it was a good thing that their holiday was ending, but she is still a little suggestible, even though her thoughts are coming more easily, her mind recovering from its shock. So when he asks the question, her original thought slips away to be replaced by the answer.  
  
Irene is quite certain that the effects of a concussion are utterly intolerable.  
  
"Idiots. Working for a scared hotel owner in Las Vegas. Your knife collector."  
  
She draws a breath, and the scents are not what she expects, and she tries to pull herself up to look into the room. "Iron and sulfur. Matches and blood, still fresh."

 

The tension in Sherlock's neck is significant. There are no closets in this room, no places to hide. She can't be here anymore, but his senses aren't in place enough to see where she's gone.  
  
If she left by the door, she'll have seen the Woman, and Sherlock with her. The Woman is in danger.  
  
"Worried you're going to control them far too much?" he asks, moving towards the bed and then to lower the Woman onto it.  
  
"I think you might need to punish him," he adds.

 

He is ignoring that she notices the blood and sulfur and asking questions, though he cannot hide the the sudden tension in his shoulders. She recognizes the attempt to divert her, and Irene's brow furrows in irritation. Answering questions is easier, but it will not give her what she wants, and she bites down on the inside of her cheek, the momentary pain dispelling the fog that still clings to her thoughts.  
  
The bed and the surrounding world remains mercifully stationary as she pulls herself up, struggling just a little to set her feet on the floor so that she can see properly.  
  
She sees the pool of blood, soaking into the carpet, too much to be anything minor, the bloodied candlestick, needle. "More than just cocaine," she says as she tries to stand. The words are firm this time, coming from her lips as she wants them to, not lost between mind and mouth. "What happened to her, your dealer?"  
  
She looks up as she tries to stand, for the first time noticing the marks on him, that belied his admission of simply cocaine.

 

He hates the words he's about to say. He hates them, because they are the antithesis of everything he wants to be. They show a weakness, a crippling of the mind, an inability to see enough. Sherlock is a man who has wanted to be more than that for his entire life, and whenever he speaks these words, he is reminded of his own mortality, of his own fallibility.  
  
He scowls.  
  
"I don't know."  
  
Behind him, and not to his knowledge, the door that had been open moves to close, and the disheveled, bleeding Frannie steps towards them.

 

For a moment, she thinks her seeming recovery from the concussion was temporary, as the door moves out of the corner of her eye. But the ground is firm beneath her feet, and a second look tracking the door shows Irene a bloodied woman, her eyes wide with pain and desperate anger, moving towards them.  
  
Her hands are bare, the candlestick is out of reach. Irene reaches for the only thing she has, fingers tearing at the loose knot holding the silk strap around her throat. Removing it reveals more marks, red striping from where it had been pulled tight to choke her, tiny red crescents of her fingernails as she dug into skin to loosen its grip.  
  
Her thoughts still feel like they are slogging through wet snow, what would have been a snap decision taking precious seconds. But she manages to find the words, to keep her voice calm even as she gathers herself to move, to wrap the silk around the disheveled woman's neck. "Do you remember San Salvador?"

 

Sherlock's eyes turn to the Woman's neck, to where the marks are. He can see the attack in his mind, through the way the man looked in the room when he arrived, to the marks on the Woman's neck. He can see her fight back, see how she kept herself awake and alive throughout it. He doesn't doubt that if he hadn't shown up, she'd have still survived.  
  
Her words, however, startle him, and he sees her gathering the silk of the scarf. Remember San Salvador.  
  
Frannie is about to attack.  
  
He moves without thought, dropping to the side, giving the Woman room to attack.


	6. Incapacitated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their vices targeted, Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes must use what wits left to them to solve the puzzle of who would want them separated, and how to dispose of the evidence.

The woman's previous blood loss saves Irene. It makes her slower to respond, even in the face of Irene's less-than-precise movements. But garrotes are forgiving weapons, and it does not take much precision to throw the loose scarf over their attacker's head, to draw it tight around her throat.  
  
Irene's knuckles are white as she pulls the scarf taut, her lips thinning with the effort of keeping her grip as the other woman gasps and claws at her own throat. Irene tries not to think how she had, mere moments ago, been in the exact same position.

 

Sherlock turns to see the Woman in control, gripping her scarf around Frannie's neck. Sherlock can see that the Woman was attacked in a similar fashion to this. She was attacked in this way, and yet she's attacking back. That is the Woman. She does not become the victim, even when she is afraid.  
  
Sherlock stands before Frannie, before them both, and he does not interfere with the way the Woman attacks. He doesn't insult her this way.

 

The woman's struggle is visceral, violent, panicked, but the moment of death is surprisingly quiet. There is a gasp, then the woman's clawing hands fall to her side, her body a sudden weight on Irene's arms. Another moment, and Irene tightens her grip. When she meets no resistance, she finally lets go, the body falling limp towards the bed as Irene's shoulders sag.  
  
She takes a deep, shuddering breath, and looks up to see him watching. Her expression shifts when she meet his eye, her shoulders straightening, her expression cool, controlled. "I'd question your choice of company," she says, her voice cracking despite her best efforts, "but then you might return the favour."

 

He leans down, checking Frannie's throat. No pulse. He feels no grief for her. No remorse whatsoever. He can only hope the Woman feels the same.  
  
"You spend your time with a sociopath who has spent the last few years traveling the world to destroy a web of a consulting criminal few people believe actually existed," he says. "I think we're far beyond questioning it, don't you?"

 

Irene lets the scarf fall from her hand, lets the silk drift from her fingers to the ground, and shakes her head. Another steadying breath, and she sits heavily down on the bed. She doesn't look at the dead woman, not out of fear or guilt or anything of that nature but simply because now that the woman was dead, she hardly merited notice.  
  
Her lips twitch in what could be a small, weary smile. "Some trite idiot might say something about birds of a feather, Mr. Holmes."

 

His body is practically _vibrating_ with a mixture of the drugs in his system and the adrenaline from this fight. He considers the door near them, the people in there.  
  
"Have I ever told you what my brother used to say about coincidences?" he asks, glancing briefly at the dead woman, and then at the door.

 

"That they don't exist, I expect."  
  
Irene takes a deep breath, forcing herself to draw air deep into her lungs despite the lingering pain of her own earlier near-strangulation. She wants to reach up, to feel her own now-bare neck, to convince herself there is no damage, but she does not, forcing her hands still in her lap.  
  
"The two I met are connected to the casino owner in Las Vegas. He's terrified you're coming for him," she says with a casual nod at the body on the ground. "Ham-fisted attempt to assuage his fears?"

 

"Perhaps," Sherlock replies. "Though this woman's knowledge of my preference in narcotics doesn't strike me as something a man half a world away might know."  
  
He also doesn't want to tell her how luck, more than brashness, is the only reason Sherlock is still breathing.  
  
He reaches out his fingers towards the irritation at her neck. It shouldn't leave a mark, he thinks. Of course, it still might. The Woman would have survived, he tells himself. Panic is unnecessary, and dangerous.

 

She leans towards his hand unconsciously. It would be troublesome, if she allowed herself to realize, to admit, that she found his proximity comforting.  
  
"But hardly a secret. She could have done her own research. If I recall, Richard Brook's expose was quite thorough," she answers. "Though she's not exactly a problem any longer."

 

"She's the arrow, not the archer."  
  
He notices her slight movement. It feels good, to have someone pull towards him rather than away. To have this from _her_ , in particular. It will be better, he tells himself, when they are not together. When they do not need each other, as he is quickly finding himself feeling.  
  
"I believe your two lovers are probably much the same." He feels his fingertips shaking again, and he pulls his hand back.

 

He draws back, and a little twinge of something like disappointment crawls up the back of Irene's throat. She swallows it back, takes another breath, and reaches up one hand to touch her throat. She can feel the minute scratches of her nails as she scrambled for purchase against her own skin, the warmth and irritation of the scarf that had nearly choked her as she had choked the life out of the other woman.  
  
"Blunt arrows," she remarks, rising from her seated position and carefully skirting around both body and paraphernalia. "They were hardly assassins. Bungling opportunists, at best."

 

"Honing in on our vices, if poorly," he replies. "No patience."  
  
He nods to the door. "We're going to need to make certain no one else on this boat has the same idea."

 

The room is small, utilitarian, but there is a small alcove with a sink and mirror, and Irene makes for it, studying her reflection critically.  
  
The marks on her neck will fade, and whatever has not faded before they arrived in St. Petersburg could be hidden by makeup and clothing. She hates the fact that she imagines her paleness to be wanness, and balls her fists to dig nails into her palms and hide any residual shaking.  
  
She glances at him in the mirror. "Are you suggesting we hide, Mr. Holmes?"

 

His hands are shaking. He can see the color from his hands smear outward, like lines moving into the ether of the rest of the room. An effect of whatever he'd consumed. Frannie made it potent, he imagines. Built up her own natural tolerance, and offered him something stronger.  
  
The Woman is talking, and she's asking him something important. He pauses. He focuses.  
  
"One last time," he says. "We're going to need to."

 

She runs hot water from the faucet and soaks a rough washcloth in it, using the washcloth to wipe away the makeup she wore. She splashes water directly on her skin too, the heat dilating capillaries, bringing a warmer flush to her skin, chasing away the wan tinge.  
  
Straightening, she blinks water from her eyelashes, looks at him again. He is shaking, and she can tell from a glance that it takes effort for him to focus. The drugs still in his system.  
  
What a pair they make at this moment, she thinks to herself. She did not trust her own faculties, not with the lingering effects of the concussion, the pain throbbing just behind her skull from impact against the door. His high making him unpredictable.  
  
"Neither of us are in any shape to hide in plain sight," she reminds him, taking the damp cloth in hand and walking back to him. "Give me your hand."

 

He's always astounded by how different she looks without makeup. For some women, like Molly, removing makeup just removes whatever highlighted portion of their skin the makeup was using. For the Woman, removing makeup is like removing a secondary layer, revealing a rawness that is---well, distractingly sensual.  
  
He finds his hand has extended towards her with her request.  
  
"If your couple and my dealer here are working together, they may attempt to cause a stir over her death."

 

His hand is warm against hers, and her fingertips run along his knuckles as she checks for traces of blood. She tells herself this is a matter of course, that it is simply expedient to ensure no traces of the dead dealer's blood remains. That her hands do not linger as she draws the warm washcloth over his skin.  
  
"Then we simply have to ensure they don't find her until we're off this ship."  
  
She can hear her own casual confidence, but the lingering slowness in her thoughts irritates Irene that she cannot so easily bring to mind how to do so.

 

He concentrates. The lines around the Woman's face are moving, shifting. A very strong psychotropic drug must have been mixed with the rest, but---but---  
  
"We need to be rid of the body, and we need to be rid of your couple," he says. "And you and I are more than clever enough to figure out a way to do both."  
  
Clever enough when at their faculties are at their strongest. She is concussed. He is high.

 

Flecks of blood bloom to small pink stains on the washcloth. Droplets, nothing too difficult to rinse away. The body though...  
  
Irene's brow furrows as she thinks, as the elusive thoughts that normally come so quick try their best to slip out from between her fingers. Her words are slow, careful and deliberate as she works her way through the plan taking slow shape in her mind.  
  
"She has clothes here. Change her out of the bloodied things and into something clean. The inebriated have terrible balance. Hardly anyone would question a drunk woman falling overboard."

 

"They'd question the candlestick in her back," he replies. "Especially if the two in the other room are working very hard to get us cornered. Out of their way."  
  
He starts to pace. Normally, stillness is required when thinking, but his body is moving as much as his mind, and he needs some sort of order in the chaos.  
  
"What did they want from you?"

 

He begins to pace, and following his motion threatens to unbalance the tenuous grip Irene feels she has over her surroundings. So instead of following, she sinks back down onto the bed, nudging one of the dead woman's limbs out of her way as she does so.  
  
She settles back on the bed and closes her eyes, blocking out the threat of motion, of a room that might begin to spin. "Only if they find the body in the water. Not very likely, if she slips overboard at the right spot," she counters. She does not bother opening her eyes to see his reaction. "They wanted to know whose side I was on. Yours or theirs."

 

"Ultimatums were never your specialty," he says. Logically, she should have simply told them that she was on their side, but stayed on her own. He'd never presume she'd be sentimental and say she was on his side. She was far too much herself for that.  
  
"They wanted you alive, but with them. She wanted me dead. Not just dead, humiliated and dead. Humiliated, dead, but ties to Las Vegas and a desire to keep you alive."  
  
His mind is spinning. The solution to the corpse in this room is irrelevant. Only the mystery matters.

 

"They aren't yours either," she points out, eyes still closed to prevent his pacing from triggering the room spinning.  
  
"You dead and humiliated, so no one would take up the hunt for Moriarty's web after you. Me alive, so that money still flowed to Van Statt and the Red Door." She opens one eye, as if testing the waters to see if the room remains cooperative. "A lesson in discretion will be in order."

 

"If I didn't know better, I'd think our old friend Jim was behind this," Sherlock says. But no, Jim was very dead, and Sherlock could not delete the memory of blood flowing from his head, from the bits of fragmented skull and brain.  
  
"Van Statt was not patient or clever enough for this." He stops, and turns to look at her. "Moran?" It really is a question. He feels that she has an opinion significantly less colored than his.

 

The genuine pause in his voice, the questioning tone without his usual knowing smirk behind it, makes Irene open both eyes, and prop herself up on her elbows to study him. She considers the question, and shakes her head.  
  
She immediately regrets the motion, and holds still again for the dizziness to pass. A few hours more, and the effects of the concussion should have thoroughly passed. "Not Moran. Not after Ontario." Her lips twist in a smirk made a grimace by the need to steady herself from the effects of the concussion.  
  
"He and your brother share a particular problem. They both know if anything happens to either of us, they risk the blame and some very significant fallout."

 

"Shame they'd kill each other if they met," Sherlock replies. Though, really, Sherlock is uncomfortably confident in Mycroft's ability to kill anyone he truly wants dead. Apart from the Woman, of course.  
  
"We'll need to be aware," he says. "This may not be the last time we see these sort of symptoms."  
  
She looks dizzy. He thinks about the concussion, and then thinks about how the lines of her face keep moving outwards. He thought he knew how long this would last. He was, apparently, wrong.

 

"We need to not be incapacitated," she corrects. Irene lets her head fall back, so that she is staring up at the ceiling, for the moment.  
  
"I'd prefer to not be concussed, personally." It helps, marginally, but she looks down again, at him. "I expect you'd rather remain pleasantly high without," she gestures with her booted foot towards the cooling body, "these particular complications."

 

"Pleasantly high was when there was time enough for it," Sherlock replies. "Now it's simply bad for working."  
  
Because while there's a mystery, it's work.  
  
"What if the body did fall overboard, but something was found," he says. "Something that would link anyone looking at it back to our couple?"

 

"How much longer, or did she give you more than you expected?"  
  
The question, however, gives Irene something to focus on, something to think on, and she rises from her supine position. She is mostly steady on her feet, though there is a deliberateness to her steps that belies the fact that she is not certain how steady she can trust herself to be. "The sash from the valances?" she says out loud, stopping at the window. "Like Florence was wearing--"  
  
She stops as a thought occurs to her, and a slow smile spreads across Irene's lips as she reaches into her pocket.

 

"I think something more specific. Something that can be traced with handwriting, perhaps?" he suggests, with a small smile.

 

The piece of paper from her encounter with Florence and Stephen is still, luckily, in her pocket, and Irene fishes it out with a spark in her eyes. The room is small, and she manages to cross it in three steps without tripping over the body. The three steps bring her up against Sherlock, and she kisses him triumphantly, her body pressing/leaning against his.  
  
"Don't think you're taking full credit for this," she murmurs against his mouth.

 

He kisses back passionately, with an edge that is probably chemical, and (he tells himself) has nothing to do with the adrenaline high. Frannie, dead at their feet, will become an excellent tool.  
  
"I don't plan on taking any of it," he replies. He traces one hand down her side, resting it at her hip. "We just need someone to put the pieces together for us."

 

She is keenly aware of the path his hand traces down her side, a warm, familiar pressure resting against her hip. She tells herself it is part of coping with the concussion, that she is simply paying more attention to the points her body occupy in space, but that does not account for the way she is counting the thrum of his heartbeat and his breathing, the telltale signs of his adrenaline high.  
  
Or the way she remains pressed up again him, for that matter.  
  
"It'll be spelled out so obviously that even the crew can figure it out," she answers. She nudges the candlestick with her foot. "Dispose of the candlestick in a trash receptacle near their room. Everyone will see it as their hasty attempt to clean up the scene."

 

He smiles, slowly, lazily.  
  
"I would have you right here, in this room, until you begged for mercy, twice," he murmurs to her.  
  
It's not really possible, of course, considering the corpse, and the fact that they're both really too far gone. But he would, if he could.

 

She feels his slow, lazy smile spread beneath her lips, and her own smile grows in response. They are in no shape to pursue that particular line of thinking, not at the moment, but the knowledge that she draws the sentiment from him is a pleasant warmth in the pit of her stomach.  
  
Irene nips at his lower lip sharply before drawing back, stepping away and bending down to tuck the scrap of paper into Frannie's pocket. Deep enough to be secured, but still believably tucked into her clothing.  
  
"Be careful what you promise, Mr. Holmes," she cautions. "Because I may take you up on that when we reach our destination."

 

"Mmmm," Sherlock nods. "But not until you've extracted the information you need. I can't have you distracted."  
  
That, and he can imagine what she will do, how she will coerce and seduce her target, and that is equally arousing. Finding out what he likes and using it. She is brilliant.

 

Satisfied with where the scrap of paper has been placed, Irene rises back to her feet. Even with the fading effects of her concussion, she feels like she has regained her equilibrium. This is more like them, after all: plotting, teasing, misbehaving. Even compromised, they are still utterly themselves.  
  
"Insisting on business before pleasure?" she purrs, dusting off her hands. They'll need something, perhaps one of the woman's shirts or a coat, to hide the blood on her back, at least until she is overboard. Irene steps over to the open bag on the floor, and digs through it as she continues over her shoulder, "You are learning how to be _quite_ the tease."

 

"Am I?" The idea never occurred to him.  
  
He looks down at Frannie, and then nods to the window.  
  
"I can get her through there. You be the one to sound the alarm."

 

She picks up a shirt, its polyester fabric slick against her fingertips, and wraps it around the bloodied candlestick. A smile lingers at the corner of her mouth as she rises, watching him at the window.  
  
"There'll be enough time to dispose of this and sound the alarm after we get her through the window," she answers. "Finding the body would be far less effective if they had to fish _you_ out as well."  
  
Not that she's concerned.

 

"I'm high, Woman," he says. "Not concussed."  
  
As she is. Not that he's been worried. Not that he's been charting her every move since he realized.

 

"And you're prone to seeing things, if the way your eyes are tracking are any indication," she informs him tartly. "Blurring boundaries or lines of movement? You could miss the window as easily as I could."

 

A smirk appears on his lips. He can't deny it, nor would he. He wouldn't insult the Woman's intelligence that way.  
  
"Quite the pair we are," he says.

 

She sets the wrapped candlestick down by the door, and grabs the woman's arm to hoist her towards the window in question. The only care Irene takes is to not dislocate the woman's shoulder or grip too hard least she form a bruise.  
  
"Aren't we always?"

 

The Woman and Frannie are blending together, and it's only by concentrating very hard that he's able to tell where to grab Frannie, to help the Woman lift her.  
  
"Always," he says.  
  
There's a sharp chime, and Sherlock dimly notes it's his phone. Hardly enough to worry about right away, except it goes off again. And again. A series of text messages in short bursts.  
  
He continues to lift Frannie and drag her towards the window.

 

He's concentrating hard; the furrow in his brow as he grabs the body tells her that. Irene assists as much as she can, though mostly she is watching him, making sure he does not misjudge the distance to the window. She takes a step back away from the body and towards the window as he moves it along, and frowns as a chime sounds. And another.  
  
For a moment she is certain it is tinnitus in her ears, but it quickly becomes obvious that it is his mobile. She wrests open the window, the room filling with the fresh clean scent of water. "Expecting more guests?" she asks, reaching for the body again, expecting to heave the woman overboard as she speaks over the chime of the mobile's text alerts.

 

"Expecting, no," he replies, lifting as well. "But it seems the longer we stay dead, the more popular we become."  
  
He lifts, and Frannie's body easily falls out of the window. He listens, hearing no satisfying splash over the sound of the boat moving through the water.  
  
"I'll deposit the weapon, you sound the alarm," he says.

 

Irene takes a moment to look out the window, to judge the fall of the corpse.  
  
"You're too obviously high," she objects, crossing the room again. She forces herself to be quick, light on her feet, not suffering from any balance issues. She smirks at him and picks up the wrapped candlestick. "Find somewhere out of the way, Mr. Holmes," she tells him, her hand on the doorknob, twisting open the door. "And enjoy what pleasant buzz you have left. I'm quite adept at making a fuss even without you."

 

He reaches out to take her wrist.  
  
"And you're injured," he says. "Concussed."  
  
But she's right. He won't admit she's right, but she is. He's far more noticeably unwell than she is, and he doesn't know how long the visual hallucinations will last.  
  
He pulls his scarf out of his pocket, and drapes it over her shoulders.  
  
"To hide your neck," he says.

 

His hand is warm, a familiar weight against her wrist, and Irene's smirk softens into something warmer, an affectionate smile, as he drapes the scarf over her shoulders.  
  
"You're surprisingly attractive when you fret," she tells him, her fingers brushing against his wrist as she slips out of his grip. "There's a cafe on the starboard side. I'll meet you there in ten minutes. You can fret until then."

 

He lets her go this time, pausing only long enough to let her leave before he steps from the room as well. He looks over at the closed door with the couple in it. They're dangerous. They hurt the Woman. If the lines of the doorknob weren't so blurry, he might take them down before security did.  
  
His phone goes off again.  
  
He sighs, pulls it out, and glances at the texts. He sends one of his own.  
  
I will be bringing her, as agreed. Be there.

 

She is focused on three things. The task of carrying herself upright, the need to deposit the candlestick, and need to make it to the rail and sound an appropriately concerned alarm. Between the three, she files away his received texts as a concern for later. She makes it to the trash and hastily tosses the covered candlestick into it, then makes it to the rail.  
  
The corpse is little more than a splash of colour bobbing in the wake of the ferry at this point, and it takes two shouts and waves at the rail for the other passengers to notice the corpse, then the officers. Once the officers begin shouting, Irene pulls the scarf closer, and slips back away from the deck. The seed, after all, had been sown, and the longer she lingered among them the more likely her symptoms might be noticed.  
  
She heads towards the starboard side, to the aforementioned cafe, taking only a brief pause before she approaches to breathe deep, to steady herself again before she takes a seat at one of the outdoor tables.

 

Details set and then text messages erased, Sherlock settles himself with a cup of tea at the cafe. He slips a pair of sunglasses from another travelers' bag and puts them on his face, hopefully obscuring his terribly bloodshot eyes and a bruise on his cheekbone.  
  
He drops into the seat next to the Woman.  
  
"Did someone fall overboard?" he asks, casually.

 

She waves off the server, a redheaded young man with the last vestiges of acne hiding among his freckles, and leans back in her seat. Despite her carefully schooled expression of neutrality, her body language is obviously relieved to be sitting down.  
  
She shrugs, precisely nonchalant in response even as her eyes sweep over his 'disguise'. "The crew seems to believe so. I hope it doesn't cause an undue delay. Some of us have appointments to make in St. Petersburg."

 

"I doubt it," he says. "Nothing they won't be able to fish out in a few hours."  
  
He reaches out to take her hand. Nothing sentimental, he reminds himself. Just something to maintain their togetherness and comfort despite the murder they've just committed.  
  
No one would suspect them. No one would have reason to.

 

There is no hesitation when she rests her hand in his. That should trouble her, but Irene tells herself it is simply a part of their disguise. The small gestures matter more now, because their disguise is easy to penetrate, with them both compromised.  
  
She taps her fingertips lightly against his palm. Not Morse code, there was no need for it at the moment, but it allows her to trace a finger along his palm, to rest lightly against his pulse point. "Taken care of your messages?" she asks, a smirk on her lips. She doubts he'd leave anything to chance, or, more precisely, to her discovery.

 

His heartbeat quickens, only slightly, at her words.  
  
"Of course," he says, voice smooth. "Everything should be ready for our arrival, taking into account no delays."  
  
His mobile chimes. Just once. He does not pull it out.

 

His pulse quickens, just a touch, under her fingers, but there is simply not enough data, not enough energy for her to put the pieces together.  
  
Still, she arches an eyebrow at him at the single ring of his mobile, her fingers still resting on his wrist. "You're being solicitous again. Are you doing it to make me suspicious for no reason or because I should be?"

 

He doesn't even have to lie. He just has to give her a small, mostly genuine smile.  
  
"I think you should trust me as much as I trust you."

 

Her own smile is genuine, but her fingertips remain at his wrist. Trust. Trust isn't in their vocabularies, not truly. They have their moments of intimacy, of fragile exhausted understanding, and they know neither will let anything happen to the other. But they keep their secrets still, and Irene knows that she can never say that she trusts Sherlock Holmes.  
  
"Good," she answers, running a warm fingertip along the inside of his wrist before she draws her hand back, settles back into her seat. "St. Petersburg is hardly a place for sentiment."

 

"Oh, I wouldn't worry," he replies, turning to face the water, and away from the sound of shouting and struggles behind them. The couple has been found, and are being apprehended. Excellent.  
  
"I doubt anything sentimental will happen in St. Petersburg."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for sticking with us! We're rapidly approaching the end of _Death Takes A Holiday_ , but we just want to thank all of you who have stayed with us, who have laughed at our two idiots as they languish in denial, who have cursed our names as we threw them into danger, and as they come so very close to being functional human beings and time and again run back from the precipice.
> 
> Lyra apologizes for the lateness of this chapter, life ate her. But she hopes to get the next installment, tentatively titled _Death Takes A Holiday: A Chill Beyond Russian Winters_ begun before the new year. Until then, hope you're enjoying our little adventure!


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